Film of the Week #17 - Batman Begins

Karl Hungus

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372784/

As far as films based on comics go, this baby is near impossible to fault. Astounding cast too.

Discuss.

Lemming

I second this - easily on par if not surpassing the original Keaton films. The only negative I have about the entire film is Katie Holmes. She truly was the weak-link in the film.

The film felt very much like the DC Comics Batman rather than the cartoony image we were given in the last few films. He is, after all, a vigilante. And it was good to get to see inside his mind.

johnny_ultimate

Really changed the way alot of people - myself included - look at comic book films. Like Karl, must admit its hard to find faults. Beautifully shot (the magnificient looking snow seqences, or the fire in the training 'monastry', for example), wonderfully acted, and unlike all those so called 'darker' sequels, truly pitch black in tone and content. The final action sequence outdid everything in the more action packed franchises, I thought. Cemented Christopher Nolan as one of the most important Hollywood directors today, a fact only strenghtened by the Prestige.
Simply Hollywood cinema at it's most profound, bombastic, and wonderful levels.

BopNiblets

Love it, inspired me to buy some of the source graphic novels and a few comics.

Ras al Ghul -> Lazarus Pit anyone? Could we see Liam Neeson again do you think?

Still looking for The Man Who Laughs though, bloody hard to find.

aidan_walsh

BopNiblets wrote:

Ras al Ghul -> Lazarus Pit anyone? Could we see Liam Neeson again do you think?

After all the good work they did building the character of Ra's as an idealogy rather than an actual person, we had better bloody well not.

spacecoyote

yeah, i just watched this again last night. It really is a pretty flawless comic book adaptation, the best to date without a doubt. I even managed to rope the girlfriend into wathing it, and, much as she generally has fairly poor choice in movies (don't tell her i said that ) she got it spot on. She really liked it, well everyone in it except Katie Holmes and was very happy to hear they'd be making a sequel. The cast lineup is pretty fantastic, and everyone plays their part excellently. Bale reall does make an excellent Wayne, and was definitely the best choice of actors form the modern generation to take up the mantle

TheIrishGrover

You notice how cleverly set up the Batman universe:

1

The DA's dead leaving way for Harvey Dent to come in

2

The gas has been released in the narrows, driving a lot of people demented. Leaving space for slightly more bizarre, yet still human, characters

3,4,5

I know they were overt about it but the burning of Mayne Manor giving an opportunity to build a proper Batcave, the progression through the ranks of Gordon and, of course, the Joker card

All brilliantly setup for The Dark Knight. Pretty much flawless really IMO. (Oh yeah, like Spacecoyote there said. Only flaw I saw was Holmes. Thought she was terrible. Like the casting for TDK though)

qwertplaywert

tbh nearly flawless movie , katie holmes being the major downturn
cillian murphy truely stole the show as the scarecrow, hope he returns, if not in dark knight returns, then the 4th one
one fault for me was christine bale as batman........he was terrific, and the best acted batman, but for me, michael keaton brought a certain errienesss to the role, that can never be repeated

lodgepole

What exactly was it about Katie Holmes that was universally disliked? I didn't see much wrong with her performance, although she's obviously not the same calibre of actor as Bale.

RAIN

What i loved about it was that bale was as engaging as wayne as he was as batman,this rang through in the script and story aswell!Some of the best parts of the movie were the first hour way before we even see batman!wasent mad on the way they caught his parents killer (wasent mad on the original Joker/killer thing either) but it tied into the whole hero/redemtion/reason he left gotham thingy.You could nit pick about alot of stuff but ultimatly you felt a real felling of respect for the source material for and that covers over any small cracks.Brilliant.Cant wait for TDK.

Dont be at yourself

Bale was excellent as Batman, and Caine was great as Alfred. I enjoyed how Bruce Wayne became Batman - the whole first half of the film was fantastic.

It was let down, in my view, by the villains. Rahs Al Guhl was slightly pantomine, and the Scarecrow was extremely one-dimensional.

The Joker should make an excellent villain in the next one though, so hopefully we're in for an even better movie!

TheIrishGrover

Lodgepole wrote:

What exactly was it about Katie Holmes that was universally disliked? I didn't see much wrong with her performance, although she's obviously not the same calibre of actor as Bale.

Well, in fairness to Katie Holmes her character was extremely bland. All she had to do was to be the pretty girlfriend. Like what RAIN said, I liked the fact that they made Wayne engaging. I mean, he even smiles and cracks small jokes that didn't feel out of character (Does it come in black?) And I thought Morgan Freeman was fantastic: The tumbler? Oh, you wouldn't be interested in that. Really, for me it was only Holmes' character that was week but not really her fault. Will be interesting to see what Maggie Gyllenhaal does. Is she playing the same character?

BopNiblets

aidan_walsh wrote:

After all the good work they did building the character of Ra's as an idealogy rather than an actual person, we had better bloody well not.

Maybe if they run out of ideas for Batman 9 he'll be back!
"But is Ras al Ghul immortal?"

Anyway, I noticed the appearance of Zsasz (with cuts for his victims on his neck and everything!) and a glimpse of a young Barbara Gordon too.

Batgirl!

I wonder will they bring Harvey Bullock in? Haven't they got someone for Montoya? Or did I dream that?

bluto63

One of the best comic book adaptations I think. It was played brilliantly with my favorite performance by Cillian Murphy. He can play those roles so well.

aidan_walsh

BopNiblets wrote:

Maybe if they run out of ideas for Batman 9 he'll be back!
"But is Ras al Ghul immortal?"

Unfortunately, the conversion of Ra's pretty much means we may never see Talia. Or, they could do something equally as interesting with her... Hmm...

qwertplaywert

bluto63 wrote:

One of the best comic book adaptations I think. It was played brilliantly with my favorite performance by Cillian Murphy. He can play those roles so well.

aye.....combined with his red eye preformance, they were the 2 best in 2005 imo

Sad Professor

I was a bit disappointed with this at the time, it felt very rough around the edges. Script didn't seem the best, like a first draft. I should give it another watch though.

And Holmes gets far too much flack for this film. While I don't think she's a great actress she did the best anyone could have done with the part. I like Nolan but I don't think female characters (or actresses) are his strength; he ended up making the same mistakes with them that Burton did. And replacing Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhaal isn't going to make a slight bit of difference unless they give her something to work with.

I think the sequel will seal this films fate as far as how it's remembered. If the sequel is great then everyone will continue to worship this as a perfect comic adaptation; if it sucks then everyone will revise their opinion of Batman Begins to match and Warners will start lining up the next reboot.

And how the hell did Ra's Al Ghul's and Wayne's mansions burn down so quickly? I mean all it took was a little fire and they both exploded. Hopefully Bruce won't build his next one out of flammable substances

I heard a rumour that they are going to destroy the tumbler in the next one, I hope not though, its a cool car, and it would take something really special to replace it.

DeepBlue

Batman Begins is great when compared to its predecessor - the utterly execrable Batman and Robin. Jeez, that film was soooooo bad that I regret not walking out of it.

Judged on its own Batman Begins is probably not as great as it first appeared but it's definitely a welcome change of tack for the Batman franchise.

Carcharodon

Decent film but wouldn't put it that high in my list, dont think it deserves film of the week in my opinion I felt the start was very good and there was a good flow through the film but the ending was a bit poor, thought it kind of fell down a bit towards the end.
Caine was excellent as usual and Bale was very good but the thing that really annoyed me about te film was the voice he put on when he was Batman, it was bordering on being comical. I am obviously making a mountain out of it but it really stuck with me throughout the film