Batman Begins [2005]
Director: Christopher Nolan
Actor: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Rutgher Hauer, Morgan Freeman, Ken Watanabe, Tom Wilkinson
Great film! Loved it. Since Michael Keaton did Batman the franchise has been sorely abused by people who thought a Big Name Actor could make a movie a Big Movie and rake in Big Bucks, sadly it just made for a Big Mistake each and every time. Ever since Tim Burton passed the baton on to Joel Shumacher the films have sucked. Until now.
While either Christopher Nolan’s directing is bad, which is kind of hard to believe, or whoever edited this film needs to be shot, which is much easier to believe, because the crossovers from one scene to the next were so rough. It almost makes you feel they were cutting it close in order to make the movie fit a certain time length. It also felt like they had a very long and detailed storyline regarding Bruce Wayne’s disappearance from Gotham, his life of crime and his incarceration in a Chinese prison and his rescue from that by Ducard, but that they had to significantly edit and cut pieces of that out of the film in order to make the film fit a certain length. All in all it makes for some rather rough edges around an otherwise great movie. Also, Christoper Nolan can’t direct a fight scene to save his life. :)
The story is rather straightforward; rich kid sees his billionaire parents try to diffuse a mugging and get shot in the process. Insert guilt. When the mugger gets let off on parole because he strikes a deal with the district attorney to help testify against a big crime boss, it sees rich kid, who is now quite a bit older, filled with disillusion at the judicial system. He wants to take revenge by gunning the mugger down while he leaves the courthouse, but is denied that chance by one of the mob boss’ assassins who beat him to it. After a confrontation with said mob boss he decides to live a life of crime in order to know his enemy. He drops out of sight for several years. He lands himself in a Chinese prison and is soon discovered by the mysterious Ducard, who tells him he can offer him direction, training and a purpose as super-vigilante. After years of expert training he finds his graduation rather…ehm…going against what he believes and he flees the school and is on his way back to Gotham City, which has, in the meantime, become even more shitty and deplorable than before. He decides to take on the entire city’s criminal underbelly in the guise of his worst fear; bats. He will be the Batman.
Oh, and Batman is really a ninja.
Great flick. Great performances by Michael Caine and Cillian Murphy. Okay performances by Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman and Rutgher Hauer. Weird performances by Gary Oldman. :)