Written by: Dominick at 7:12 pm
Writers: Christopher Nolan, David S. Goyer, Bob Kane
Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Christian Bale, Michael Caine,Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, Ken Watanabe, Linus Roache, Gus Lewis
Rating: PG-13
Studio: Warner Home Video
Release Date: July 8, 2008
Despite being released in theaters and on DVD sometime in 2005, I had never seen Batman Begins. This was the first Batman movie I’d not seen. I must admit, of all the superheroes out there, Batman is my favorite. I wanted to see Batman Begins for the story, but something kept me from seeing it. I’m assuming it was my growing distaste for Katie Holmes. It’s hard to look past her freakish relationship with Tom Cruise and I feared this would take away from any performance given by her in this movie.
Still, I wondered how Batman Begins compared to other Batman movies. I should tell you I’m not a canon fanatic. I don’t keep tabs on what was in the comic books and what was made up by directors that ‘just don’t know what they’re doing’. I look at the overall story to see how entertaining it is. Everyone has their own interpretation of Batman. Even some of the newer comics deviate from the original Batman stories, so this isn’t an issue for me. What are issues to me include poor storytelling, terrible acting, and a not so enjoyable plot. Luckily, Batman Begins only suffers minimally in all three areas.
Release Information:
Batman Begins debuted in theaters on June 15, 2008. It debuted at #1 in North America netting well over $48 million in its opening weekend. Prior to this release, Batman Begins has made over $371 million worldwide. The film was released on DVD on October 18, 2005. The DVD was made available as both a single disc release and a Two-Disc Deluxe Edition.
With the upcoming release of the sequel film, The Dark Knight, Warner Home Video has decided to release a special, limited edition gift set of Batman Begins. This two-disc special box set was released on July 8, 2008. It is available in the vast majority of offline retailers and online at Amazon. It can be purchased at Amazon for $28.99 USD.
The Batman Begins Plot
I’m a huge fan of Christopher Nolan merely because I truly enjoyed the film Memento. I also was quite impressed with his work on the film Insomnia. It’s hard to imagine a director and writer who creates films like this could possibly make a terrible film. I know it happens, but I was hoping that he’d take Batman Begins in a new direction, yet keep the main frame of who Batman is intact. I was incredibly interested to see Nolan’s vision for Batman.
This is, by far, the darkest vision we’ve seen of Batman, to date (though I’m anxiously awaiting the performances by Bale and Ledger in The Dark Knight) and I can’t say I didn’t expect this of Nolan. His vision of Batman is unlike any of the others we’ve seen in movie and television form. Batman embodies a darkness that gives him an edge. I’ve always seen Batman as a dark hero with dark desires and a sense of vengeance, as well as justice. Nolan gives Batman all of these traits, by meshing aspects and story elements from a variety of Batman sources.
The acting, for the most part, is excellent. Bale makes a great Batman. He’s a lot different than the other actors who have played Batman. It’s hard to say he’s the definitive Batman, though I feel he has a lot of promise to come into his own and really explore the role in a way we haven’t seen in the various, other Batman incarnations. Michael Caine makes an excellent Albert. He’s everything you’d expect of Batman/Bruce Wayne’s most loyal of adversaries. Gary Oldman is virtually unrecognizable as Jim Gordon, who we all know will eventually become Commissioner Gordon. He has this whole William H. Macy vibe and look. Other actors worth mentioning include Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, Liam Neeson as Henri Ducard, Cillian Murphy as Dr. Crane/Scarecrow, and Tom Wilkinson as Carmine Falcone.
That brings us to Katie Holmes. I find it hard to believe Rachel Dawes was written for Holmes. I felt that she did a horrible job acting and she dragged down the scenes she was in, excluding the ones were she just sat there half passed out. I’m hoping Maggie Gyllenhaal is more into the role of Rachael Dawes, a role that was specifically created by Christopher Nolan to be the love interest of Bruce Wayne and a significant part of his past.
The story for Batman Begins explores the past of Bruce Wayne. The things learned about his past explain why Batman is the way he is and why he became the hero he did. The story starts in the past with a young Bruce (Gus Lewis) who is eight years old. After running off with an artifact he stole from his friend, Rachel Dawes (Emma Lockhart – at age eight) an event that shapes his entire life is about to occur. While he’s running around his family’s large property, he falls into a hole, which leads to a cave. As he hears a noise, and has injured himself so he cannot move, a swarm of bats flies at him and over his head, terrifying the young boy.
After Bruce’s father, Thomas (Linus Roache) saves him, he starts having nightmares about bats, developing a fear of them, in the process. A short time later, Bruce is attending the opera with his parents, Thomas and Martha (Sara Stewart). Bruce gets scared halfway through the performance and asks to leave. The bat-like creatures on stage have ignited his fear and remind him of his nightmares. With his parents willing to leave the theater, Bruce doesn’t know that his nightmare is just beginning.
While slipping out the back door of the Opera house, his parents are gunned down in front of him by a man named Joe Chill (Richard Brake). With no family left, Bruce is left to be raised by his family’s trusted servant, Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine). As Bruce grows, his hatred for Joe Chill does and he returns to Gotham from college with only one thing on his mind…revenge. With Joe Chill set to be released from jail, in a plea deal in which he’ll testify against the mob, vengeance won’t be Bruce’s to have. Denied the justice he seeks, Bruce heads out with nothing to tie him to Gotham, as he travels the world trying to understand the criminal mind by living on the streets and doing what he has to do to survive.
After spending time in a foreign prison for attempting to steal products belonging to Wayne Enterprises, Bruce is visited by a man named Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) right before he’s released from prison. He invites him to be trained under the guidance of Ra’s Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe), a man who believes in justice against crime no matter the cost. After learning martial arts, how to conquer his fear and other fighting techniques with the assistance of Ducard, Bruce realizes that this is not the kind of justice he seeks. He believes in actual justice, not just revenge and killing serves no purpose unless absolutely necessary.
After Bruce manages to return to Gotham, he sees how the town is suffering. The city is corrupt and not even the police will do anything about it. Many of them are corrupt themselves. Bruce, in the confidence of Alfred, discovers caverns under his house, which he converts into a makeshift bat cave. He also visits Wayne Enterprises, where he spends time with his father’s old friend, Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) and learns about all of the cool gadgets Wayne Enterprises has developed, which Lucius gives to Bruce to use for his own private purposes.
With the gadgets from Lucius, the skills he developed while out of the country and a desire to be something his father would be proud of, Bruce must bring something back to a city that seems to have nothing going for it. He must battle a corrupt police force that is too damaged to want assistance in cleaning up the streets. He must discover the secrets of Dr. Crane and his Asylum, which is known for being home to the most deranged of criminals and he must stop the distruction of a city his father helped to create.
I found the story compelling. I enjoyed the performances. The plot was woven together nicely. There were plenty of enjoyably interesting characters and there was minor annoyance at the performance by Katie Holmes. Overall, I found the story to be so good I was able to look past Katie Holmes being a part of this movie. I won’t have the same problem with reviewing The Dark Knight when it is released merely because she isn’t in it. I guess we all have Tom Cruise to thank for that.
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Audio/Visual:
I thought the visual quality for Batman Begins was incredible. While the colors were dark and the overall feel was somewhat dreary, everything looked amazing, came through clearly and fit in with the dark theme. The video quality for Batman Begins is presented at a 2.40:1 aspect ratio. The movie is displayed in widescreen. I really didn’t notice any visual errors. The video was sharp, clear, and crisp. For a standard DVD this is as good as it gets.
The audio for Batman Begins was equally as impressive. The Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound track made great use of both the front and back speakers. The sound effects and music had a dynamic sound and the dialogue was both crisp and clear. It’s hard to argue with quality this good. No volume toggling was necessary as everything came through evenly and excellently. The English track offers closed captioning for the hearing impaired. There is another soundtrack in Dolby Digital 5.1 French. Subtitles are available in English, Spanish and French.
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Bonus Features:
The Batman Begins Limited Edition Gift Set is loaded with bonus features. Some of the bonuses were released with previous releases of Batman Begins and some of the bonuses are brand new with this release. The bonuses start with “Batman: The Journey Begins”. This is your run of the mill making of featurette. Of course, this is an extended making of, so there is plenty of awesome information about the creation of the movie, casting choices and more.
From here, you can choose to play one of an array of featurettes. There is a featurette that explores Christian Bale’s preparation for playing the role of Batman in “Shaping Mind and Body”. This also takes a look at the fighting styles employed by Bale in order to play Batman. “Gotham City Rises” looks at the production design employed to create the city of Gotham. This featurette is also quite interesting. Then there is “Cape and Cowl”, which looks at costuming for the movie, in particular, the new Batsuit. You can’t look at the new bat suit without exploring the new Batmobile. This is presented in the featurette entitled “Batman – The Tumbler”. The featurettes don’t stop there. There is a special look at filming in Iceland entitled “Path to Discovery”. This is particularly important when looking at the scenes where Bruce is training and later takes on Ra’s Al Ghul.
Batman Begins has plenty of additional features to keep fans thrilled. There is a featurette entitled “Saving Gotham City”. This looks at the chase sequence on the Monorail, which happens near the end of the movie. This is one of the most pivotal scenes in Batman Begins, so it is nice to see how the cast and crew put this one together. My favorite feature though was called “Genesis of the Bat”. This looks at Batman from the mid-1980s until today with a look at all the various Batman incarnations and stories. From here, the featurettes are done.
This Batman Begins set has a character and weapons gallery called “Confidential Files”, as well as a still gallery. This gallery offers design ideas which were developed specifically for marketing Batman Begins. Finally, there are demos for the Batman Begins Mobile Game and the Batman Begins Xbox Game. Overall, this is a great set of bonuses, with plenty of things for fans to sink their teeth into after watching the main feature.
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Bottom Line:
While the quality of the film is nearly identical to earlier releases, there are a few different bonus features not originally presented in the Batman Begins Two Disc Deluxe Edition. The Batman Begins Limited Edition Gift Set will make an excellent edition in any Batman fan’s library if you do not already have the film. If you happen to have the Deluxe Edition, you may want to weigh your options and decide if the extra bonuses are worth the purchase or not. Otherwise, I highly recommend the Batman Begins Limited Edition Gift Set. Pick it up while you can!
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Technorati Tags: Batman Begins, DVD Review, Warner Home Video, Warner Bros, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Batman movie, Limited Edition Gift Set, Cillian Murphy
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Written by Dominick - Visit Website
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Dominick Evans is in his late 20's. He spends his days working as a full time writer/editor and a part time musician/composer. His passions in life include music, directing films, watching movies, reading books, watching sports, wheelchair football, politics and spending time with his family (fiancée Ashtyn, son Robert, and shih-tzu Oliver). Other interests include being an advocate for the disability and GLBT communities.
Love Batman.