Begin-ning Again

Forget George Clooney. Forget Val Kilmer. Forget Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Carrey, Uma Thurman, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris O'Donnell, and Alicia Silverstone. Even (dare I say it?) forget Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer. This is the definitive Batman movie. Any trace of the campiness and unintentional comedy the Batman movies descended into under the hand of Joel Schumacher has been wiped away completely. This is a dark and violent movie, and I loved it. Christopher Nolan and David Goyer take the Batman story and lay it bare, giving us a reasonable explanation for every part of the Batman mythos. Granted, it's still a comic book movie, and some suspension of disbelief is required, but it's easy to understand what drove Bruce Wayne to become Batman, and how he actually reaches the point where he can do everything Batman does. We're given a scientific basis for all of the gadgets on the utility belt, and shown how Wayne becomes such a great warrior, and these scenes give the movie an air of reality that underlies the comic book story and really makes it work. As for the cast, Christian Bale was terrific, Morgan Freeman was great as inventor Lucius Fox, and Gary Oldman made an outstanding Jim Gordon. I thought Liam Neeson did well, but I couldn't help thinking of Qui-Gon Jinn for the first hour of the movie, since he was basically playing the same role. Michael Caine seemed a little wasted in the role of Alfred, but he didn't have much to do. And Katie Holmes... well, she just seemed a little too young to be out of college, much less an assistant D.A. But aside from a few casting missteps, Batman Begins is a great movie. Two thumbs up, five stars, whatever. Go see it.