IvanF's Cut and Paste, No-Name Theatrical Review of
Batman Begins 2005

- IvanFian written June 22nd, 2005 -

"Okay, I admit it... I'm one of those select few, rare people who somehow didn't really like the original Batman movie...

... and okay, I admit it too. I was also somehow one of those select few, rare bastards, who preferred Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the X-men cartoons at the time, over Batman: The Animated Series...

But I will admit one thing though... out of almost all movies from the 1980's, the first Batman film is one of those select few, rare, precious films that still stand tall and proud to this very day...

... and while TMNT and X-men are both cheesy, outdated messes now in this day and age, the Batman Animated Series still truly manages to stand the tests of time...

And why?... because they're both fucking works of art...

I may not be the biggest Batman fanatic out there. But there is one more thing I've just got to admit...

Batman is eternal...

Batman Begins, and Batman becomes...

... "a legend, Mr. Wayne"...

...

I caught a late-night showing of Batman Begins in a Scarborough theatre in Toronto. I saw it with my cousins and all, and because of that? My viewing angle for the film wasn't as favourable as I had hoped it would be...

Let's face facts - I probably would've enjoyed Batman Begins a hell of a lot more, if only I wasn't forced to sit on the far left side of one of the goddam front row seats... The picture was panoramically and pornographically fucked up for me, thanks to the fishbowl effect from that angle. Colours were faded, voices were muted, and one asshole behind me kept kicking my goddam seat... and my fucking neck was killing me by the time it was all said and done...

And yet despite it all?... Batman Begins still managed to rise to the occasion...

... and pretty much met almost every single one of my expectations...

... no matter how high flying and soaring each of them may have been...

...

Some are already calling Batman Begins as the best damn comic book movie of all time.

Now, I wouldn't go quite that far... but it's painfully obvious just how much this film was a labour of love, and not a labour of... well? Labour...

Christian Bale was pretty much the perfect Bruce Wayne... although he did suffer a few hiccups and bruises along the way...

I couldn't stand the broody, filthy version of Bruce he played at the beginning. Not only did the quick, jarring cuts in the prison fight hurt my goddam eyes, but I couldn't help but keep picturing goddam, fire-breathing dragons in the background as Bale climbed the hilltops with his beard on straight...

But Bale still managed to nail the role, probably better than any actor before has been able to nail Bruce Wayne... His Jedi anger during training was amazing to watch, as his aggressiveness was a startling contrast to the cocky Batman fighting we're so prone to seeing... And while I didn't particularly love the scene myself, much later on when Bruce Wayne was being his ol' playboy self with the hotel swimming lounge and all? You could visibly see the teen angst still in his eyes, as he was basically faking an orgasm of pleasure and richness for the world to witness... You could somehow literally see the two sides, or two faces of Bruce Wayne in that very moment. With one half of him pissed off that he had to fake a smile for the cameras, and the other half seemingly and almost honestly making fun of the psycho in a mask...

This was the Bruce Wayne of the true comics, and the true Animated Series. The cocky, arrogant, chauvanistic playboy, who knows he has to put up with the pain of being a fake and a phony, to protect the ones he cares about behind the mask... Christian Bale absolutely nailed his performance as a young Bruce Wayne coming out of Princeton. The look in his eyes whenever he held that gun in his hands, and the gaze in his furrow when he saw his parents' killer, dead in a heap on the ground, but not by his own hand?... It was an amazing scene, and an amazing performance on Bale's behalf there. Not only did he stunningly look the part, with the 1950's style wussy hair cut and all, but he played the part of the man filled with both remorse and lost vengeance to an absolutely perfect, bitter pill of a letter...

... and yeah, I got a kick out of Katie Holmes, slapping him twice and being the bitch that she is... but that's besides the point...

Katie Holmes was the one truly terrible thing about the film, however. I mean seriously, they should just hire George Lucas to replace her with a CG version of Yoda. Or a less wooden version of Padme Amidala, as I sure as hell wouldn't complain... Katie had absolutely no chemistry whatsoever with Bale. Not only did she look too young for him, and not only did she completely not have the air of dignity you'd expect from an honest lawyer or anything. But I just can't fucking believe how much her role as the damsel in distress was wasted... It sickens my heart that she was able to kick the ass of Scarecrow with just her little taser. And then after that, gave me a fright by almost directly copying Kirsten Dunst's Spiderman performances, when she confronted Bale about the mask he wears...

Hell, Katie Holmes wasn't even hot this movie. What the fuck?...

Go to hell, Pacey. Go to hell...

I mean seriously, where were the hot girls in this movie? Were they anywhere?... I don't remember a single one...

... and the fugly hotel cunts don't goddam count...

...

... but the strange thing is, Batman Begins didn't really need the ladies... if anything, hot bitch eye candy would've detracted from the overall mood and amazing atmosphere of the movie...

The theme of the film was fear. Plain and simple... and Batman Begins brought it all to the big screen with absolute, poetic justice...

This was one dark, sinistre of a movie. And absolutely broody, moody and artistic in every single conceivable way... There were just so many memorable moments, that it's hard to pinpoint even a favourite single scene amongst them all...

This was the film that explained the origins of the Batman we all know, love, and fear...

... a brilliant concept, to reset a series that had lost itself in pure, ridiculous, and almost frighteningly retarded shit over the years...

But I admit, if anything dragged down the movie? It was these two things...

First, the movie took way too long to get past the Shaolin Soccer Monk shit in the mountains. I was honestly bored to tears of just listening to all the Buddhist and amoral rhetoric uttered in those scenes... And the final fight that we got out of it all? Not only was it disappointing to see Mr. Last Samurai get suicided again by yet another one of Katie Holmes' boy toys in ten seconds flat, but what the fuck was with Bruce Wayne in that scene?...

Yes, I know the League of Shadows (or the League of Extraordinary Shadows, I prefer to call them, considering Liam Neeson's UK accent and all...) was rather MWAHAHA, cliche evilish. But did Bruce Wayne really have to go, "I will NOT kill any innocent murderers", and then fucking blow the entire place up in a heartbeat, including the man he refused to slaughter? WTF?...

And if there was definitely any second fault to the film, it was the quick cam cut action... I mean, maybe the problem was just accentuated by the fact I was sitting on the far left side of one of the fucking front rows, thanks to my cousins conning me into going to such a late night show... But seriously, what the fuck is up with Hollywood and the quick cuts these days? Do they not want us to see the action or something? And make us dizzy enough to throw up and buy an extra soda or two to wash all the puke back down?...

The batmobile sequences were great, simply because I could see and feel what the fuck was going on. But the final fight on the mountains, and the final fight on the train were both completely ruined by short, ADD quick cam shots, and hand to hand battles that just didn't last long enough... I mean honestly, who throws a shoe? WTF?... Near the end, first Bale takes out four League of Shadow goons without breaking a sweat, as if they never did kick his ass when he was training. And then when he was against Al Ghul? This was literally all I saw on the screen...

Punch. Kick. Punch. Kick. Evil monologue on the monorail train. Mwhaha. Punch. Kick. Batarang. Cape... then WTF? It was all over?

Roll end fucking credits?...

What the fuck kind of fucked up, epic finish was that?... so fucking unsatisfying...

To be honest, there was one more thing that I was disappointed in the movie by... and I never thought I'd say this...

Liam Neeson.

... umm... massive spoilers for those who care, but...

I mean seriously, first things first... How the fuck did a Master Jedi get his ass kicked and name taken by just Batman? It's like the fucking Hulk beating Superman in the DC vs Marvel comics all over again... it just ain't right...

Second, I couldn't hear a damn thing that Liam Neeson said throughout the whole damn film... I'm hoping that it was just because my ear was next to a fucking subwoofer, so everything I heard in an English accent would somehow be muffled only to me. But I've heard various reports of just a god-awful sound mix to the film when it comes to anything that Liam Neeson said... I mean seriously, was it just me, or did every single one of his big lines get overpowered and overshadowed by the soundtrack or an explosion in the background?...

... and oh, by the way... Liam Neeson really, really, ridiculously sucked as a villain...

Part of it was because I saw the big twist of the film coming from a mile away. Half because Liam Neeson looked way too ominously distinct and evil with that goddam beard of his in the trailers... and half because him and the fucking League of Shadows was fucking exposed as bad guys, before Bruce Wayne even decided to Hulk up and blow up their whole goddam monastery on a whim...

Seriously, WTF?... We saw Bruce save Ducard's life and all. How it is supposed to be a surprise to see the man return with a goddam vengeance, considering this is a story about fear and goddam vengeance?... Was it supposed to be a twist somehow, that Ducard was actually the guy in charge? Because even if he wasn't in the first place, by killing the man who was? Bruce Wayne did make Ducard the new Ra's Al Ghul, if he wasn't already... The film literally showed this forty minutes before the big fucking twist of the movie. So how is it supposed to be a big fucking surprise in the end?...

... plus, the subway fight really sucked...

... on the subway diet, both of them I see...

But where the fuck were my lightsabres?...

AND WHERE THE FUCK WERE MY DRAGONS?!?...

... but that's a story, for another date and time...

... end massive spoilers... although, umm... this review is pretty much just one big summary of the film, so why the hell does it matter?...

Ra's Al Ghul may have royally sucked as a villain. And while the League of Shadows may have been insidious, even indirectly causing the deaths of Bruce Wayne's parents in the end, they still really weren't very bright when push came to shove... Sure, killing Gotham slowly with the economic depression wasn't bad. But just leaving Batman to die a slow death from goddam aging, after a horribly cliche evil monologue, rather than just putting him out of his misery in the burning house then and there? Yeah, just fucking bright, Mr. "I'm More Retarded than Stargate's Ra"...

Fucking trying to tear the city apart, using its own panicking citizens as a sort of goddam Resident Alias endgame style? Sure, on the surface, it may have seemed nicely in line with the whole mood and theme of the movie being fear and all. But it just didn't work out in the end... Not with some stupid microwave gun, fucking up the laws of physics or whatever, by penetrating lead pipes but not the surfaces of our skin. But that's a goddam rant for another sci-fi day...

The Scarecrow though, was an amazing villain however. There's just something about the character of Dr. Crane, that seems so ingeniously evil whenever he speaks, that you just can't help but be fixated and fascinated by his amoral insanity as he grins out, "it's the... bat... man". Or some crap like that... Scarecrow was probably my least favourite villain in the entire comic series. But damn, was he ever beguiling and goddam wicked with those smarmy glasses of his in this film...

His cocky and sly nature, and that devilish grin on the face of Cillian Murphy,  just shines so damn darkly as he walks away proud of turning Falcone into a paranoidal lunatic. The tug at the corners of his cheeks when Katie Holmes flees in panic to the elevator, was just so damn sadistic, that I just couldn't help but enjoy the damn bitch being tortured as well... And the delivery of his stature and lines, when he gassed Batman with the fear toxin and lit the son of a bitch on fire? God damn, it was so damn quick and brutal and to the sharpening point, that it was probably the only damn time in the entire film where quick cuts were actually welcome...

... and it's always nice to see Bale get his ass kicked by a fire breathing monster...

... ah, good times... the good ol' days...

Because this was the film of Batman's beginnings... this was the film where Batman wasn't the genius of a vigilante that he eventually will become...

He made mistakes in this film. He paid the price... and luckily, he had a bit of support in the end...

Now, I don't know if Lucius Fox was in the comic books or not. I don't remember him from the Animated Series, at least... But I just couldn't help but fall in love with Morgan Freeman's portrayal of the scientific genius. His sly wit and cunningly vague comments, were just so damn true to the "Fox" name, that I couldn't help but enjoy every single moment that he poked fun at Bale getting his ass kicked by a goddam nerd with glasses...

... I mean, wouldn't you find that funny?...

... didn't you get the memo?...

And Michael Caine? Sadly enough, I never appreciated his work with the series before... but dammit, I just can't believe how damn perfect his comic relief was in this film... In the back of my mind, I knew that his jokes were predictable. I knew that the script wasn't really humourous. And yet I just couldn't help but still smirk a grin or turn the other cheek with a smile, every single damn Alfred poked his own sense of fun into the film...

Like letting Wayne borrow the Rolls Royce? Or that lovely article he found in the papers, of a drunken Bruce Wayne burning his house to ashes (hmm... Bale sure has a thing for fire, it seems...)?... I don't know why I laughed. I mean, these are all things I normally wouldn't even find the slightest bit amusing in a film, but... Somehow, Michael Caine and his delivery of every single friggin' line of comic relief, was done so damn ingeniously... that I couldn't help but snicker a kind of evil snort, every single damn time... as if on cue... as if gassed...

... as if out of fear and heart break... and the true desire for comic relief...

And that's exactly why I know in my heart, that Batman Begins is a much better film that even I'm giving it credit for...

...

I can't say I enjoyed the film nearly as much as I know I should've the first time around. I mean, I was not blown away by Batman Begins, simply because the sound mix in the theatre I was in, and the goddam angle that I was seeing the massive projection screen at, ruined every single fight scene and pretty much every single action sequence that could've defined the Batman series for what it was...

Some of the casting was just off too... Katie Holmes can go back to OC hell for all I care. She may not have been from that show, but OC sucks, so it's a perfect goddam match as far as I'm concerned... I already mentioned that Liam just seemed lacking somehow, for the first time in ages... And hell, even Sergeant Gordon didn't have the kind of voice that I expected from the commissioner. But since he's not the commissioner yet, it gives him a ton of time to grow, and a ton of potential to show, to earn that extra commission yet...

I can't say the pacing was up to my tastes or comic book standards either. The first half was slow as hell, and yet the third act of the story was done so damn bloody quickly, that it seemed like it was over in a single blink of an eye... I mean, after the subway crashed, the entire city is just perfectly fine? Wouldn't it take weeks to synthesize enough antidote? WTF?...

But I can say one thing definitely at least...

This movie was simply a fucking work of art...

This film was all about the true origins of Batman. And while some things were changed, it's unbelievable just how much more real this film feels than the old Batman film series ever did before...

As a techie geek, I can't help but fall in love with the new Batmobile, being as practical of a tank of a Hummer's dream that it is. I can't help but drool at the prospect of knife-blunting, Kevlar armour. Or ordering 10000 Batman masks, only to find the cheapasses shatter like glass... I can't help but adore every single mistake that Batman makes along the way. We just can't help but learn from every single moment ourselves, while rooting for the underdog against all odds...

The script was just utterly beautiful. With a true Bruce Wayne, playboy for hire... With a true Batman, who kicks all asses and takes no prisoners (even though Bale's voice while Batman was disgustingly awful...)... With true comic relief from both Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman... And with some true villains along the way for the ride, with Scarecrow being utterly ingenious (as the man that I now aspire to become one day...), and the League of Shadows at least mostly holding their own...

Take almost every single damn scene... Whether it's the sight of bats swarming the police forces en masse, with Batman gliding down stairways to hell with darkness swirling all around him... Whether it's the final moments with the Scarecrow, where the timing of his flaming horse absolutely saved the otherwise dull, Apocalyptic scenes... Whether it's the amazing CG effects, of the maggots on Scarecrow's face. Or the utterly devilish, hellfire of a demonic glare that Bale was happily sporting to Crane's crazy delirium... or hell, whether it's pretty much any single damn scene where you see Batman swinging through the alleyways, clinging to stairways, or soaring through the darkened skies with his trademark cape...

The darkness of the whole atmosphere of the film, made absolutely even the most ridiculously looking Superhero shots, into ones that just somehow seemed natural...

... into ones that just somehow felt gritty... into one that just somehow felt real...

... into ones that just somehow felt like Batman... you know?...

I may not have enjoyed the film nearly as much as my heart tells me I should...

... but I will admit one thing though...

It's only a matter of years, until we look back at this age of X-men and Spiderman comic book films, and just can't help but feel embarrassed for ourselves...

... but just like it was with the original Batman movie?...

... and just like it is with Batman: The Animated Series to this very day?...

Ten years down the road? Twenty years, even...

... Batman Begins will still be exactly the film that it is today...

... and become exactly what it deserves tomorrow...

... a legend, Mr. Wayne..."

Film Design - 8.0
Enjoyment Factor - 8.5

Overall (not an average) - 8.0
(2.5 out of 4 stars)

___________________________________

- Commentary from a friend -

"I never thought I'd say this...and I never thought that the Spider-Man franchise could be topped...and yet, I never really lost faith in what Christopher Nolan as a director could accomplish.

Film Design - 9.0
Enjoyment Factor - 9.5
Overall (not an average) - 9.5
(4 out of 4 stars)
- Risen Phoenix -