Full Batman Begins Review, and: A Whole Lot More

Wow was today one of those days.

For some reason I was sure that I had to be at work at 10:30 today, and yet I overslept, woke up at like 9:55, and realized I had to be there at 10. I threw my page uniform on, hauled it down to NBC, and called to let them know I'd be slightly late, but would still be able to do my 10 am tour. So of course my supervisor is right there in the room when I called, and heard the whole thing, so my plan to quietly slip in at 10:10 and get on with my tour was thrown out the window. So it turned out there were two 10 am tours, I didn't even have to do one, yet I was still chewed out for being late, and awkwardly sat in the ticket office for an hour and a half trying to make myself busy and useful, too out of it to engage in any form of pleasant conversation. But I still had another tour to do, and the Tonight Show. And my tour overlapped with Leno, so I had to run right from one thing to the other without a second to collect myself. And I was Admitter, meaning a lot of counting was involved. I don't like counting.

So tonight I'm taking it easy because I am freakin' exhausted.

Today on the show: Michael Jackson's attorney Tom Mezzero (sp?), some American chopper dudes, and some wannabe Sheryl Crow named Courtney Jay (sorry but her song today was ripped right off of a Crow album or something, which isn't saying much in the first place). I thought Mezzero was very well spoken and seemed pretty convincing in explaining how poor the case against MJ was. His statements combined with Stephen King's EW editorial today about the Jackson trial coverage goes to show how the media really created much of the hype about this case and turned one highly eccentric guy's life into a media circus that blew things way out of proportion and was basically a self-perpetuating feeding frenzy.

Yesterday: Craziness ensued as Lindsay Lohan and the Backstreet Boys came to the show. Some of the other pages had some horror stories about dealing with crazy fans and whatnot, but I didn't really have any bad experiences and most of the fans I dealt with were very nice people and didn't cause any real problems. Sure, seeing people tattooed with pics of the Backstreet Boys and wearing handmade garments emblazoned from head to toe with screened photos of the band was little creepy, but hey, it was an easier bunch to deal with than those wacky Gerard Butler fans (I love you guys but you are totally freakin' nuts!). Barely saw Lohan but she seemed a little less emaciated looking than in recent tabloid photos. Kind of surreal to be standing in front of a girl who is such a huge pop cultural star yet at first glance could easily have been just another one of us NBC pages.

Wednesday: Pre-Batman Begins, the I got up close and personal with Paris and Kathy Hilton who appeared on Leno. Unlike her daughter, Kathy was very articulate, dignified, and possesing that old school upper class snobbery, not that new-school red carpet MTV-ified club girl image of her daughters. But seeing Paris up close is so weird. It's like she is just constantly posing. Like every little adjustment, leg cross, turn of the head, and smile is some carefully timed gesture made as if to accomodate some everpresent fashion photographer or something. Just very weird and Stepford Wives-ish. Unlike say, Jessica Simpson though whose vacant eyes led me to believe she wasn't quite all there in the head, I think Paris may be a little bit smarter than she lets on, and maybe even a lot smarter - I mean look at the success she's had basically from doing nothing ...

Basketball:

What a crappy NBA Finals this has been so far. Every game has been a blowout, first by the Spurs and now by the Pistons. And yet, intriguingly, it's now a tied series at 2 games a piece. They have gotta be due for a close game at this point ...

Movies:

Oh mang, today's EW cover story on Bryan Singer's Superman movie has me more nervous than ever that this movie is going to suck. First of all it, it's going to follow the continuity of the first two Superman movies? What the hell? Take a lesson from Batman Begins - those movies are almost 30 years old - START OVER. While the first two movies are classics, they are by no means the end all be all of Superman movies - they can be done MUCH BETTER in the right hands. Second, Singer's already talking about all this allegorical stuff, like Superman as the messiah, something about the plot being an analogy for Singer's relationship problems over the years ... What the ..?!?! Singer, put down the crack pipe and give us a kickass Superman movie, not this crap! Dammit, if he screws this up ... oh, and Brandon Routh still looks retarded in that lame-ass version of the costume in the pictures they've released so far.

Batman Begins Review:

Well, in Wednesday night's initial Batman reactions I covered the basics: namely, that the movie rocks. But there's a lot more to say than that. Really though, I don't think it takes a lot to explain what's good about Batman Begins. It's dark, takes itself seriously, is mature, dramatic, and focuses on something very important that the other films largely glossed over: the character of Bruce Wayne - who he is and why he became Batman. Because Batman is a unique superhero in that his persona is entirely of his own creation. There was no freak accident, no alien origin - he is a self-made, self-styled hero whose abilities were gained through work and persistence and dedication, and the whys of that transformation are finally and satisfactorilly explained in Batman Begins.

The acting in this movie is almost universally phenomenal. First off, Christian Bale IS Bruce Wayne. He pulls off the tortured nature of Wayne expertly. He adapts to the different personas - the billionaire playboy, the driven student, the emotionally stunted victim - effortlessly and flawlessly. Never before have the many faces and facades of Bruce Wayne been explored so thoroughly in a movie. Bale looks iconic as Wayne, right off of the comic page and onto the big screen. Bale as Batman is almost as good. He does "the voice" well, for the most part, though in a few scenes he over does it a bit and sounds too cartoonish when he takes on that trademark gravelly Batman tone. While Bale is good, it's still Kevin Conroy of the Animated Series who is the definitive Voice of Batman. Now in certain shots, Bale as Batman looks hella freakin' cool. In long shots, in side shots, in sillouette, in shadow, standing atop the Gotham rooftops with the moonlit cityscape framing his flowing cape, this is the best, most iconic looking Batman yet. Closeup though, the costume still looks kind of goofy, and appears too tight and constraining, giving Bale some very awkeard-looking facial expressions while under the cowl. The costume itself is still too detailed and strange and rubbery looking when seen in close up shots. Still, that's more of a nitpick than a big omplaint, but damn I wish they would just drastically change the way the costume looks for the next movie, but I doubt that is gonna happen.

Aside from Bale though, some of the supporting characters really almost steal the show. First off, Morgan Freeman is great as Lucious Fox, a character who is actually pretty two dimensional in the comics but who here has a lot of great, humorous one-liners and is pretty interesting addition to the Batman mythos. As Morgan Freeman so often does, he makes you really get behind Fox as a character and root for him throughout the movie as a kind of sly underdog mentor type. Sure, it's par for the course for Freeman, but I'll take it.

Michael Caine is great as steadfast Butler to the Bat and father figure Alfred Pennyworth, a character who is much more intriguing and well rounded in this movie than in previous efforts (even if the late great Michael Gough did imbue the character with much needed class in the previous films). What can you say, it's frikkin' Michael Caine, the man is a legend. As a longtime Alfred fan from the comics, I have but two small fanboyish complaints that about five other people in the world will care about. One: Alfred is supposed to have a mustache, dammit all! I want to see Alfred with a mustache, he just isn't right without it! Two: He calls Bruce Wayne "Master Bruce" not "Master Wayne." Sorry but I had to get that out.

Now, Katie Holmes could have been a disaster here. She does fine as Rachel Dawes, the idealistic DA, but she is simply outclassed by the great actors around her and just seems miscast in a role that should have probably gone to an older actress with a stronger screen presence. As is though Holmes does okay in the ole and doesn't really detract from the movie. I was happy to see that the romantic subplot was kept in the background, but overall it seemed mostly pointless and was kind of put in there to throw a bone to marketing types who think any Batman movie must have a love interest, even though it doesn't really fit with Batman's intensely driven persona as a loner with no time for love.

Gary Oldman is awesome as James Gordon, and does a great job with the material he's given, and I can't tell you how great it is to finally, finally see the real Jim Gordon on screen - the one with an old school cop 'stache and overly big glasses, the one with a Chicago accent and a heart of gold, the one who is the one good cop in a corrupt city, who is Batman's one ally in his war on crime and his one true friend. But, sadly, Oldman is underused. So much of this movie is based on the great Batman: Year One, that it's just a shame that they couldn't have at least touched on Gordon's backstory which is so prominent and well-written in that Frank Miller-penned tale. Hopefully in the sequel we can see more of Oldman as Gordon, this time played more for drama than comedy, with a bit more of a chance to shine (if they adapt The Killing Joke at all then he may get that chance ...). Still, Oldman as Gordon just made me happy that they finally were starting to get the character right.

Now, as for the villains ...

First off I have to talk about Liam Neeson, who I am really starting to like as an actor who can pull off those key dramatic yet slightly over the top roles so well. His performance here reminded me slightly of Kingdom of Heaven, where in a short time on screen he stole the show and delivered some of the best lines of the movie with some much needed gravitas (been hearing that word a lot lately ...). Neeson as "Ducard" is great, and his strong performance in the early part of the movie makes his return in the latter half, and the revelation of his true identity, that much sweeter. Neeson is a great, old-school, pulpy villain with a modern twist. He plays a multi-faceted character who still delivers his villainous lines with vigor and relish when the time is right. Like Gordon though, more could have been done. Neeson's motivations are murky throughout the movie, and his backstory is only hinted at in the briefest of ways.

And that's the thing - Ra's Al Ghul is one of Batman's best and coolest villains in the comics, and yet many of the things that make him so great - the immortality-giving Lazarus pits, his demonic appearance, his conflicted daughter Talia - are conspicuously absent here. Sure, the basic essence of Ra's Al Ghul is intact, but there could have at least been some nods to his rich backstory as was so memorably crafted by the likes of Denny O'Neal and Neal Adams.

Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow is friggin' sweet. Again, the character kind of comes out of nowhere and gets lost in the shuffle a bit, but Murphy does an awesome job of portraying a legitimate insane, psychotic Batman villain who is still believable and works in the more realistic context of the movie. The digitally-created hallucinations brought on by the Scarecrow's fear gas are great and provide some spectacular imagery - particularly an amazing shot of Batman as seen by a criminal - as a sick-looking demonic Bat-being that looks way cool. Murphy, like Neeson, delivers his lines like he means 'em, and really invigorates every scene he's in.

Ken Watanabe is barely in the movie, as it turns out, but hey, he looks cool when he's there and as usual kicks some ass when called upon.

Also for the comics fans it was sweet to see Mr. Zsasz, one of the sickest and most twisted Batman rogues from the comics appear in a small role, menacingly played by the lead singer of British band James no less! Rutger Hauer is always good as a badguy and his role here was no exception, and the character of mob boss Carmine Falcone was used to good effect as well.

The action in the movie ranged from great to subpar. The Batmobile car chase scene was brilliant and a lot of fun. But the frustrating part was that the overly quick cuts and shaky camera movement made you want to slow things down to really get a feel for the fight scenes, which are just too quick and confusing to allow the viewer to really get into them and get a sense for what exactly is going on. While this technique works well for some of the early scenes where Batman is portrayed almost as a monster, surprising his prey and attacking stealthily from the shadows, it really detracts from the later scenes, particularly the final battle with Ra's, where the action becomes way too obstructed due to the nonstop cutting and camera shifts.

The music in the film is powerful and moving at times, though it can't hold a candle to Danny Elfman's classic score for the original and his later work on The Animated Series. While I realize they wanted to separate themselves from the previous movies, and justifiably so, I would have loved for them to have retained that classic soundtrack from the original, which really is perfect for any incarnation of Batman.

Visually and aesthetically, the movie looks awesome. Gotham looks realistic yet futuristic and slightly surreal. While I did miss the stylized gothic cityscape of Tim Burton's Batman, this Gotham was still cool in its own right, though they still should have had a gargoyle or two for Batman to stand on ominously in the night sky. Also this is a small nitpick, but the color scheme of the movie in my opinion was too predominantly monochromatic, with everything a kind of sandy tan color. I couldn't help but think back to the classic stories drawn by the likes of Neal Adams, Norm Breyfogle, and others - stories that the movie drew much of its material from - and remembered the vivid blues and purples and blacks that his Gotham was colored in. The movie though did a great job of establishing a realistic, gritty, dramatic look and feel early on, with its snow-covered mountainsides, dank prison camps, and sweeping camera shots. Once Batman entered into the picture, they had all the iconic shots done very well - Batman standing on the rooftops, interrogating criminals, crashing through glass skylights, scaling walls, and emerging from the shadows all looked as they should - dark, iconic, and memorable.

As far as plotting goes, I really have to give credit Christopher Nolan and David Goyer for crafting a story with excellent pacing, dramatic weight, and character. The big moments felt big, the beginning - the fall of young Bruce into the batcaves underneath Wayne Manor, was great, just as I pictured it would and should be. The fateful night when young Bruce's parents are shot in cold blood before his eyes was also great - the best version on screen ever of the dark night that birthed the Batman. Additionally, while the climactic action scene felt rushed and overly confusing, the subsequent ending to the movie was, in a word, PERFECT. Right out of Year One, setting up things for future sequels and leaving the audience wanting more, tantalized by the possibilities of what comes next, demanding that Nolan and Goyer get to work and bring it on, cuz we want more Batman and we want it now. Again, where it counted, dramatically, this movie plain and simply got it right - it did justice to Batman and fit everything together to create the ultimate setup for a potential franchise that seems like it can only get better because now that the origin is out of the way it looks like business is really set to pick up.

As a diehard Batman fan, certain details of this movie bugged me. Like Gordon being the cop who consoled Bruce Wayne after his parents are killed - that makes no sense, he'd be like 70 by the time the main action of the movie takes place if that were the case, and anyways Gordon is supposed to be a recent transplant from Chicago, thrust into a hopeless situation with Batman as his best and only ally. That kind of shoehorning of plot elements into the movie's timeline really gets to me. But again, a minor point in the larger scheme of things. I also take issue with the fact that the movie was almost exclusively focused on Batman's training and abilities as a fighter, when so much of his persona is that he is a brilliant scientist, criminologist, and above all, Batman is the WORLD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE. He debuted in Detective Comics and 700-something issues later still stars in it today. Hell, in the comics and Animated Series, Ra's Al Ghul ALWAYS calls Batman "The Detective," so it's ironic that in a movie featuring Ra's, the detective aspect of Batman's character is really nowhere to be seen. Again, not the beiggest deal, and something that can be addressed in the sequels, hopefully, but something conspicuously absent from the movie. The only other real complaint is that, as I said before, the backstories of Gordon and Ra's could really have used an extra scene or two to help flesh out their characters.

Keep in mind though, all my complaints are partly due to me having, in my head somewhere, the ultimate Batman movie planned out, envisioned as I see it from my own ideas of what Batman should be and my own inspirations from the comics and other sources. But as a movie, apart from anythign else and taken on its own, Batman Begins was damn good. It more than holds its own against Spiderman, X-Men, Superman, and any other comic-based movie. As a pure drama, it succeeds. This isn't just a great comic book movie, as many have pointed out, it's a great movie, period. But more importantly for me, it is a great Batman movie, that above all else nails the Bruce Wayne / Batman character and makes him the focus of the film, which is exactly the direction that this franchise desperately needed to go in, and is why most of my criticisms are insignifigant compared to the larger accomplishment that is this movie, taken as a whole. Which is why even though some of those criticisms might ordinarily drastically lower my opinion and grade of the movie - my complaints are simply overwhelmed and overridden by the sheer sense of relief, enjoyment, and hope that this movie provides, because yes - this is the Batman we've been waiting for. This is a benchmark achievement in comic book movies. And it's one of the best overall movies of the year. Finally, the real Batman is back, the Dark Knight has returned, and I have a very good feeling that like the title says, this is only the beginning.
My grade: A

A few other quick Batman notes:

- Over on IGN.com they did a list of the 25 greatest Batman graphic novels that ended up being pretty similar to my own (hmm, maybe some of those IGN'ers are chcking out my blog?). But their list isn't bad either, and does include a few stories that I admit I have yet to actually check out, such as Batman: The Cult. It is amazing though just how many good or great Batman stories have been written though.

Comics' Influence In Batman Begins:
- Nice to see many tributes and nods to some of the great comics that shaped Batman through the years. While Year One is clearly the biggest comic influence on the movie, there are a few other little references to certain stories scattered throughout the film. Here, for the curious, are a few quick notes about stuff in the movie directly lifted from or influenced by the comics ...

- Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli was clearly the biggest comic influence on the movie. The scenes of Bruce Wayne's parents' murder were very reminiscent of Miller's version in Year One (though traditionally the Wayne's are exiting from a showing of The Mask of Zorro). The look of Gordon was from Year One, as was the gritty, starkly colored feel of Gotham itself. The inclusion of crime lord Carmine Falcone is a plot element taken from Year One and expanded upon in Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Long Halloween. Interestingly, the ending scene with Batman and Gordon discussing the Batman's effect on crime in Gotham and the emergence of new more dangerous villains like the Joker, is almost a straight adaptation of end of Year One.

- The character of Henri Ducard hasn't appeared in the comics in a while, but ironically was created in the late 80's by writer Sam Hamm, best known as the writer of Tim Burton's original Batman movie. Hamm did a brief stint as a writer of the Batman comic where he introduced Ducard as a French mercenary who trained a young Bruce Wayne in the use of firearms, combat, and other skills. Ducard later popped up as an adversary for Robin, but hasn't been seen or heard from in years. His Sam Hamm-penned appearances are actually collected in the Batman: Blind Justice trade paperback.

- Ra's Al Ghul was created in the 70's by Denny O'Neal and Neals Adams, though the movie discards with the supernatural aspects of the character (though does sort of hint at them) and does not include Talia, Ra's' daughter, who is a key element of the character and a longtime on again off again love interest of Batman, who she calls her "beloved." Ra's has been featured in a number of big event stories over the years. He takes on Batman in Batman: Tales of the Demon, Batman: Legacy, Batman: Birth of the Demon, and Batman: Evolution. He actually died in the recent story Batman: Death And the Maidens, leaving his daughter Talia and her sister Nyssa as the heirs to his secret organiztion, which in the comics is known as the League of Assasins, not the League of Shadows as in the film.

- Bruce Wayne training on snowcapped mountains with secluded sects of warriors is at least visually similar to scenes from Denny O'Neal's "Shaman" storyarc in the Legends of the Dark Knight comic, collected in the Batman: Dark Legends book.

- The bridges to Gotham being raised as citizens attempt to flee is similar to a scene in the "No Man's Land" storyarc with a similar visual. Also, Batman talking to Jim Gordon in his small garden outside his home is an image that occurred often throughout No Man's Land.

- The surreal image of The Scarecrow riding on a black horse with flames surrounding him is similar to a splash page drawing by artist Tim Sale in Batman: The Long Halloween, a story which like Year One seemed to be a big influence on the plot and tone of Batman Begins.

- Arkham Asylum has been a part of the Batman mythos for some time, but it was really fleshed out by writer Alan Grant, who created the serial killer Mr. Zsasz (who plays a small role in the movie) in his Batman: The Last Arkham storyarc from the Shadow of the Bat comic. The idea that the batcave was used by Bruce's ancestors as a means to trasnsport slaves for the Underground Railroad is an idea that was also established in the comics by Alan Grant in the pages of Shadow of the Bat.

- Many aspects of the movie's Joe Chill plot, and Bruce's decision on whether to avenge his parents' murder, were lifted from Batman: Year Two by Mike W. O'Barr, a story which is actually considered out of continuity in the current Batman timeline, as it has since been contradicted by other stories where Batman never actually discovered the identity of his parents' killer.

- The idea of Wayne Manor as Bruce's father's house is a thread lifted from The Long Halloween, but the scene where Bruce decides to rebuild his detroyed mansion "brick by brick" as it was is a scene lifted from the Batman: Cataclysm storyline where Wayne Manor is destroyed by an earthquake. In the story, as in the movie, Bruce contemplates letting the manor stay buried in the rubble, but ultimately decides to rebuild it as a testament ot his family's legacy.

And there you have it.

Alright, that officially concludes Batman Begins week. It's been fun - a lot of writing - but fun.


Have a good weekend everyone, take 'er easy.