ryan kennedy’s blog

Lisa and I went to see Batman Begins today. The Batman franchise has really been hit or miss. I liked the first Michael Keaton Batman, though that may have been overly influenced by Jack Nicholson’s role as Joker. The one with Danny DeVito as Penguin was okay, but not stellar. The rest of the movies after that have really been…awful.

So going into Batman Begins, I was really hoping for something to break the trend. First, the movie is long (2 hours and 14 minutes), but it never feels like it’s dragging at any point. The movie goes into much detail to explain the origins of Batman. From the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents to his far east training and the creation of his gadgets. It’s all explained. I really love getting the back story on superheroes, so I was eating this part of the movie up like candy.

Christian Bale does a good job playing Wayne/Batman. There are a couple of Bruce Wayne moments where he may seem a bit over the top, but that’s really just Bruce Wayne overacting being himself.

I remember hearing a lot about how bad Katie Holmes was in this movie, but I guess I didn’t see her enough to realize how bad she was. She seemed fine in her scenes, but realize that she doesn’t get a ton of camera time. For as much as she was out promoting the movie, you’d think she had a lead role.

Action scenes were good, lots of martial arts, cars smashing into things and gratuitous use of gadgetry. You also get to see that Batman is not invincible or invulnerable. Wayne takes a beating one night and wakes up the next morning with bruises all over. You get to see that Batman is somewhat unique among superheroes. He wasn’t bestowed with superstrength, the ability to fly or to shoot flames from his fingertips. He’s just an ordinary man.

The early Batmobile looks fantastic, imagine the Keaton Batmobile being fused with a Bradley Assault Vehicle. I think the best part of the gadgets is that they’re fully explained. You get a real sense of, “yeah…I actually believe such a thing could exist.”

The ending opens the way for a sequel, of course. I’ve already heard rumors of the casting for The Joker come up. I don’t see Sean Penn pulling off the joker, he seems way too angry ALL the time. Paul Bettany (the figment roommate of Russel Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, among other things) or Crispin Glover (Marty’s dad in Back to the Future) seem like far better fits for the role.

Overall, if you like superhero movies, go check out Batman Begins. Seeing the back story alone is well worth the price of admission.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 3rd, 2005 at 12:04 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.