*Originally written September 1st, 2018*
It always feels weird going back to Batman Begins, the reboot of the Batman franchise after Batman & Robin murdered it for 7 years. It paved the way for so many superhero films today, with many directors also trying to apply the vibe of this to many different genres. It's not perfect, and it doesn't hold up as well as I'd like, but Batman Begins is still an excellent comic-book film that delves into the character more than anyone of the films before it.
A big problem with Batman Begins isn't even the film's fault, but the fact is, it is completely overshadowed by The Dark Knight. While obviously that wouldn't exist without Batman Begins and this paves the way for the greatness to come, you just know potential Christopher Nolan has under his sleeve that he wasn't able to unleash until the sequel.
Part of me wants to call Batman Begins safe, which is it by today's standard of comic-book films. It captures a wonderfully dark and gritty tone, delving more towards crime-drama that cartoony superhero flick. Gotham is Chicago, but a dark, fully realised and hellish version of the city that feels real and alive. Much more so than Burton's take on the city.
Christian Bale does get a lot of flack for his "Bat voice", which is understandable, but I forgot how restrained it felt in this, compared to the borderline parody it becomes in The Dark Knight Rises. He carries the role extremely well, especially in the moments as Bruce Wayne, but part of me feels the character would have benefited greatly from him playing it as Patrick Bateman.
After the stream of Marvel films I've been watching lately, this did feel like a breath of fresh air. It actually feels and looks like a film. It retains the grain and doesn't feel overly polished and shiny. I'd always found the Blu-ray release of this to be ugly too, but the 4K is absolutely gorgeous, the amount of detail retained in all the darkest scenes is damn impressive and my god, those oily blacks look great in UHD.
Superhero films suffer a lot from the villain problem, which is something DC has always been able to top Marvel over. It's been 13 years now, so it's not a spoiler, but Liam Neeson's Ra's al Ghul is great. His plan is very comic-book, but it's just not silly enough to break away from tone. A lot of people have a problem with his death scene and how it breaks Batman's rules on killing, but it worked for me and I always found his no-killing policy utterly nonsensical anyway.
Batman's no killing rule also creates a very problematic and overlooked scene early on. In which he refuses to kill a thief in front of the League of Shadows, but then goes on to accidentally kill all of them and the thief... I'm still trying to wrap my head around that scene. Was it a moment showing how under trained Bruce was and was just winging it with disastrous? Or was it a severe oversight in the screenplay? Either way, Bruce does not seem to care he'd murdered a dozen men by mistake and it is never mentioned again. Weird.
I'm also surprised at the lack of action there is in this. The only real highlight being the Batmobile chase. I do always appreciate the amount of practical stuff that went into the making of this trilogy, keeping CGI to a minimum. Everything feels natural, unlike the later Batman antics shown in the Snyder films. I also kinda like the clunkiness of Batman's combat. He doesn't feel smooth like he does in say the Arkham games, it feels messy.
My biggest gripe with Batman Begins is Katie Holmes who is absolutely awful as Rachel Dawes, thank god she was replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal. I feel bad picking on one actress out of a cast of people who did universally excellent, but my god, she sticks out badly.
Batman Begins might hit a few beats we are massively familiar with now, but it still holds up for the most part, paving way for all the dark and gritty superhero films we could ask for. A pretty excellent start to this trilogy.
8/10 Dans
Batman Begins is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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