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perpetual_motionI went and saw "Batman Begins" last night.
And promptly squeed myself into oblivion.
I have a pretty set rule to never go into a movie with big expectations of its outcome. If I hear about a movie and it sounds interesting or funny or vaguely like I could make fun of it, I'll go. With "Batman Begins" there was a second layer to consider; I wanted to see if the filmmakers managed to sufficently apologized for what Joel Shumacher did to the francise wiht "Batman Forever" and "Batman and Robin". I am very pleased to report that the fimmakers [and the actors] have shown us how "Batman" should be handled and made Joel Shumacher look like a douche [not that that's a particularly hard feat].
Now, into the nitty-gritty. Let's look at the actors.
Christian Bale, as Bruce Wayne, did justice to the cowl like no one has done since Michael Keaton. Christian Bale was actually a *better* Bruce Wayne than Michael Keaton. Put the pointy sticks down. I like Michael Keaton as Batman. I think he made an excellent Batman, but I always felt that his Bruce was just a little too close to the Bat. The whole point of Bruce Wayne, in my opinion, is to be anti-Bat. Bruce Wayne is there to be good-looking and charming and fun. The Bat is there to scare the living shit out of people. Christian Bale played an excellent Bruce Wayne by playing him as the fun-loving playboy he really is supposed to be. I always felt that Michael Keaton played Bruce too dark. He seemed more a semi-recluse in his big, gothic mansion than a playboy who was looking to have a little fun.
But how was Bale as Batman? There is only one way to truly judge a Batman, and that is by way of his introduction. There has to be a certain menace in his voice, a certain tone that makes you wonder if you should leave the theater and double-check your pants. Does Bale deliver on the line? Does he make "I'm Batman." sound like the genuine threat it is, or does the cheese overtake him and leave him looking like a dumb fuck?
The cheese, she does not overtake. Bale spit out the line with conviction and menace, and with the growl that has become synonymous with Batman since, as far as I can tell, Kevin Conroy started voicing the animated version back in 1992. And don't just take my word for it. In the full 10:00 show I went to, there were people applauding when the line was said. I think we all snickered when Clooney tried it in "Batman and Robin".
So, Bale makes a great Bruce Wayne and a great Batman, but what about the rest of the cast? Cillian Murphy plays Jonathan Crane/the Scarecrow, who is the villain that has always sent me crawling under the covers and curling up into a ball. I love the Scarecrow. He's creepy as fuckin' hell and uses psychology to fuck with people. How can you not love that in a villain? On the physical level, Cillian Murphy is wonderfully lanky and gangly, just like the Scarecrow has always been. As a creepy, sociopathic weirdo, he nails Jonathan Crane’s somewhat off-kilter personality and scared the living shit out of me as the Scarecrow. Go Cillian. Shame you couldn’t use your pretty accent.
And Liam Neeson, as the man who trained Batman? He’s a brutal, unforgiving, vicious fuck, and I love that Liam, after decades of deep, emotional roles has suddenly gone all deep and emotional in the badass sort of way. He did it as Qui-Gon in “Episode I”, and he’s even more of a badass in “Batman Begins”. You have to be a certain kind of unstoppable asshole to have trained the Bat, and Liam runs with the idea of being the man who made the Bat his bitch.
Cillian Murphy and Liam Neeson are both phenomenally good in their roles, but my love for Michael Caine and Gary Oldham doubled when I watched them play Alfred Pennyworth and Jim Gordon, respectfully. Caine plays Alfred with a little more ease than has been usually seen. He’s more open with Bruce, more likely to reprimand him, and it works very well in this film. The Bruce in this film is still trying to figure out what the hell he’s supposed to do with himself, and Alfred as Caine plays him is the perfect counterpoint to Bruce’s confusion. Alfred knows what Bruce should do, and when Bruce starts in on the Batman, Alfred is right there by his side putting in order for 10,000 cowls and 10,000 pointy ears.
And then, there is Gary, who played Jim Gordon so normal and tired that I wanted to reach into the screen and hug him. The Jim Gordon here is a mere Detective who is tired of the crime, of the lies, and of the ineffectual way he has with the law breakers. This Gotham is a dark and dirty place with gangsters running free and cops getting paid off. Jim Gordon is one of the last real good guys on the street, and he recognizes, in Batman, another guy who’s just trying to do what he can. The moments in the movie between Jim Gordon and the Batman are dead on. Just as Jim gets ready to really get into a conversation, the Bat is gone. It’s wonderful. Even more wonderful is how much Oldman looks like the Jim Gordon I love from the 1992 cartoons. If they franchise this and he stays on, my squee may get loose and never come back.
Rounding out the cast, and finishing up the major ensemble, are Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox and Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. I’ve saved these two for last because their roles were a little more periphery than the others. Morgan’s Lucius is a man who has been kicked down into the basement of Wayne Industries by the ruling powers. He’s surrounded by prototypes and forgotten experiments, and he quite gleefully hands them over to Bruce with the request of no questions and no assuming he’s an idiot. He’s not quite a crazy professor, but he’s certainly got his very fun quirks. You want someone to play a hopeful but slightly forgotten guy, you’ve gotta get Freeman. As for Katie Holmes, all I can really say is that for the role they gave her, she did quite well. I think that Bond Girl and Bat Girl are soon going to be synonymous with one another. Katie Holmes seemed to be around to run, scream, and shoot a taser when she wasn’t pretending like she’d graduated law school and was playing lawyer. I’ve got nothing against Katie, and she gives an honestly earnest performance, but she didn’t really rock my world.
The plot is great. The fight sequences are wonderfully shot in a fast-paced, sliced up idea that when you’re fighting, you don’t really know what’s going on, and Gotham as a city looks like one giant slum. I loved it. It was dark, and it was dramatic, but there was also humor, and when the humor came, it was the extra-dry humor that’s been associated with Batman for ages. And it was genuinely funny. My favorite exchange, by far, was between Alfred and Bruce when they discovered that the cowls in their first stage were built incorrectly and prone to breaking. Alfred, with Caine’s great inflection, asked Bruce to avoid falling on his head. However, the absolute best moment of the film, at least for a great deal of us in the theater, came in the last two minutes of the film. I’m not going to give up *why* it’s so great, but it will rock any fannish heart that’s going in as a long-time “Batman” fan of any persuasion.
And promptly squeed myself into oblivion.
I have a pretty set rule to never go into a movie with big expectations of its outcome. If I hear about a movie and it sounds interesting or funny or vaguely like I could make fun of it, I'll go. With "Batman Begins" there was a second layer to consider; I wanted to see if the filmmakers managed to sufficently apologized for what Joel Shumacher did to the francise wiht "Batman Forever" and "Batman and Robin". I am very pleased to report that the fimmakers [and the actors] have shown us how "Batman" should be handled and made Joel Shumacher look like a douche [not that that's a particularly hard feat].
Now, into the nitty-gritty. Let's look at the actors.
Christian Bale, as Bruce Wayne, did justice to the cowl like no one has done since Michael Keaton. Christian Bale was actually a *better* Bruce Wayne than Michael Keaton. Put the pointy sticks down. I like Michael Keaton as Batman. I think he made an excellent Batman, but I always felt that his Bruce was just a little too close to the Bat. The whole point of Bruce Wayne, in my opinion, is to be anti-Bat. Bruce Wayne is there to be good-looking and charming and fun. The Bat is there to scare the living shit out of people. Christian Bale played an excellent Bruce Wayne by playing him as the fun-loving playboy he really is supposed to be. I always felt that Michael Keaton played Bruce too dark. He seemed more a semi-recluse in his big, gothic mansion than a playboy who was looking to have a little fun.
But how was Bale as Batman? There is only one way to truly judge a Batman, and that is by way of his introduction. There has to be a certain menace in his voice, a certain tone that makes you wonder if you should leave the theater and double-check your pants. Does Bale deliver on the line? Does he make "I'm Batman." sound like the genuine threat it is, or does the cheese overtake him and leave him looking like a dumb fuck?
The cheese, she does not overtake. Bale spit out the line with conviction and menace, and with the growl that has become synonymous with Batman since, as far as I can tell, Kevin Conroy started voicing the animated version back in 1992. And don't just take my word for it. In the full 10:00 show I went to, there were people applauding when the line was said. I think we all snickered when Clooney tried it in "Batman and Robin".
So, Bale makes a great Bruce Wayne and a great Batman, but what about the rest of the cast? Cillian Murphy plays Jonathan Crane/the Scarecrow, who is the villain that has always sent me crawling under the covers and curling up into a ball. I love the Scarecrow. He's creepy as fuckin' hell and uses psychology to fuck with people. How can you not love that in a villain? On the physical level, Cillian Murphy is wonderfully lanky and gangly, just like the Scarecrow has always been. As a creepy, sociopathic weirdo, he nails Jonathan Crane’s somewhat off-kilter personality and scared the living shit out of me as the Scarecrow. Go Cillian. Shame you couldn’t use your pretty accent.
And Liam Neeson, as the man who trained Batman? He’s a brutal, unforgiving, vicious fuck, and I love that Liam, after decades of deep, emotional roles has suddenly gone all deep and emotional in the badass sort of way. He did it as Qui-Gon in “Episode I”, and he’s even more of a badass in “Batman Begins”. You have to be a certain kind of unstoppable asshole to have trained the Bat, and Liam runs with the idea of being the man who made the Bat his bitch.
Cillian Murphy and Liam Neeson are both phenomenally good in their roles, but my love for Michael Caine and Gary Oldham doubled when I watched them play Alfred Pennyworth and Jim Gordon, respectfully. Caine plays Alfred with a little more ease than has been usually seen. He’s more open with Bruce, more likely to reprimand him, and it works very well in this film. The Bruce in this film is still trying to figure out what the hell he’s supposed to do with himself, and Alfred as Caine plays him is the perfect counterpoint to Bruce’s confusion. Alfred knows what Bruce should do, and when Bruce starts in on the Batman, Alfred is right there by his side putting in order for 10,000 cowls and 10,000 pointy ears.
And then, there is Gary, who played Jim Gordon so normal and tired that I wanted to reach into the screen and hug him. The Jim Gordon here is a mere Detective who is tired of the crime, of the lies, and of the ineffectual way he has with the law breakers. This Gotham is a dark and dirty place with gangsters running free and cops getting paid off. Jim Gordon is one of the last real good guys on the street, and he recognizes, in Batman, another guy who’s just trying to do what he can. The moments in the movie between Jim Gordon and the Batman are dead on. Just as Jim gets ready to really get into a conversation, the Bat is gone. It’s wonderful. Even more wonderful is how much Oldman looks like the Jim Gordon I love from the 1992 cartoons. If they franchise this and he stays on, my squee may get loose and never come back.
Rounding out the cast, and finishing up the major ensemble, are Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox and Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. I’ve saved these two for last because their roles were a little more periphery than the others. Morgan’s Lucius is a man who has been kicked down into the basement of Wayne Industries by the ruling powers. He’s surrounded by prototypes and forgotten experiments, and he quite gleefully hands them over to Bruce with the request of no questions and no assuming he’s an idiot. He’s not quite a crazy professor, but he’s certainly got his very fun quirks. You want someone to play a hopeful but slightly forgotten guy, you’ve gotta get Freeman. As for Katie Holmes, all I can really say is that for the role they gave her, she did quite well. I think that Bond Girl and Bat Girl are soon going to be synonymous with one another. Katie Holmes seemed to be around to run, scream, and shoot a taser when she wasn’t pretending like she’d graduated law school and was playing lawyer. I’ve got nothing against Katie, and she gives an honestly earnest performance, but she didn’t really rock my world.
The plot is great. The fight sequences are wonderfully shot in a fast-paced, sliced up idea that when you’re fighting, you don’t really know what’s going on, and Gotham as a city looks like one giant slum. I loved it. It was dark, and it was dramatic, but there was also humor, and when the humor came, it was the extra-dry humor that’s been associated with Batman for ages. And it was genuinely funny. My favorite exchange, by far, was between Alfred and Bruce when they discovered that the cowls in their first stage were built incorrectly and prone to breaking. Alfred, with Caine’s great inflection, asked Bruce to avoid falling on his head. However, the absolute best moment of the film, at least for a great deal of us in the theater, came in the last two minutes of the film. I’m not going to give up *why* it’s so great, but it will rock any fannish heart that’s going in as a long-time “Batman” fan of any persuasion.
