Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Movie Review: Batman Begins

This is by far the best Batman film ever made, one of the best comic book films ever made, and a good movie. It had great balance between the lives of Batman and Bruce Wayne. Between Liam Neison, Michael Cane, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman the supporting cast is great. Katie Holmes is ok and Rutger Hauer will never be the villian he was Blade Runner. But Christian Bale does a great job pulling off both the physical and the psychological aspects of both parts of the role. The story gives the most realistic telling of Batman's origins, explaining his training, motivation, equipment, supporting people and villians.

I found three faults to the movie. First the fight scenes were shot way too close, it's impossible to see what's going on. It was probably intentional to add to Batman's mystique but I think it's too confusing and found it quite annoying. In the middle is a chase scene with the police chasing the Batmobile through Gotham City. It reminded me of The Blues Brothers and I wondered how it was that Batman was causing a dozen police cars to crash violently. Finally, as is all too common in movies these days, the bad guy's plot was too complicated. The film does a great job of tying things together and ensuring that everything mentioned is used somehow, but in the end there were far easier ways for the villian to accomplish what they were trying, and they were smart enough that they should have realized it. In a film that was so realistic about so many other things, this stood out. And a last minor quibble, some of the lines in the last fight were mumbled and hard to make out.

Still it was a fine summer film and I look forward to it's sequels. Also I hope the Fantastic Four is this good.

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