Audience of One

Batman Begins

It was one of those names that whenever I heard it, I thought “cliched slapstick rubbish for kids”. Just the very concept of Batman was ludicrous. Superman I could understand. Spiderman I thought was a bit odd, but could live with. Other comic book heroes did nothing for me. Batman was the most ridiculous though – I watched one of the original TV shows and never watched them again.

The Spiderman films started to eat down my reserve. They were good – much better than I thought they could be based on such implausible characters (though it has to be said, the second one was a lot better). I began to think that films based on comic books wouldn’t all be bad. Still, Batman?

I was surprised recently to learn that the original two Batman films had been directed by my favourite director, Tim Burton, and that they were dark. Not camp, as the TV show had been, but actually Burton-style Gothic films described by one reviewer as “nightmare”. I’m not a fan of horror generally, but when a film uses horror elements in a non-horror plot (especially without the supernatural being involved) I think it adds to the film enormously (and that’s what Tim Burton is best at). So, I thought perhaps they’d be worth watching.

Then Batman Begins came along. A friend was eager to see it, and I was sceptical. I’d probably end up seeing it after the Burton-directed ones, but I didn’t know enough about Christopher Nolan to know how good he’d be at directing it. I shouldn’t have worried. Last night, my parents spontaneously decided that if we all wanted, we’d go and see a film. Batman Begins was the only one on that we all didn’t mind seeing and hadn’t seen already.

It begins in a confusing way, but gradually the back-story is added to and by the end it all makes perfect sense. The mood is kept quite tense throughout, with action scenes being supported by engrossing dialogue and humourous touches. The acting was all excellent, including the children playing the young Bruce Wayne and his friend Rachel.

One thing I hadn’t realised is that Batman in fact has no super powers – it’s all based around martial arts and technology, all spun up in mysticism. I felt this was much better than the spider powers of Spiderman, or the Krypton back-story of Superman, and added to the realism of the film.

The film, as in all comic book hero films, raised a lot of ethical questions about good and evil. Here there was a more subtle point raised as well – that of judgement. Without wanting to give away too much of the plot, there was raised an issue of judgement and destruction (“Gotham can’t be saved from its sin”) and redemption and justice (“Gotham can be brought out of the sin it’s stuck in”). Gotham almost appeared to be a microcosm of the world.

The ending leads into the original Batman film by introducing the calling card of the Joker (Jack Nicholson’s famous villian), but isn’t billed as a prequel, rather ” a complete restart of the Batman series which follows the original comics more closely and promises a more reality-based Batman” according to Wikipedia. So, are they going to remake Burton’s classic? It doesn’t look like it but then why are they saying it’s a complete restart?

Queries over past or future sequels aside, the film was very satisfying and enjoyable. It was far better than I’d expected even from my most optimistic moments. Highly recommended. Oh, and the whole bat thing? It actually makes sense.

Matthew @ 11:29, June 18, 2005 to Reviews | Comments (6)