Following the rousing aneurism that Batman and Robin provided and the director even acknowledging the
film sucked, Warner Bros decided that trying to redeem the four-film series
might be wasted effort.
Because of this, the proposed Batman Triumphant was
scrapped, a sea of proposals were heard, and ultimately, the decision was made
to let Christopher Nolan, a British film director, and his fellow countryman
Christian Bale give their take on the Batman world.
What came from it was a loose retelling of Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One, starring Bale as Bruce
Wayne/Batman and Liam Neeson as the main villain, R’as al’Ghul.
This film, much like Superman: The Movie, proves that doing
an origin film for a character works when effort is put into it, especially if
you take from one of the best retellings of the origin in the comic world.
But this film doesn’t just draw from Year One. It takes from some of DC’s best
Scarecrow and R’as stories.
The film starts much like flashbacks in Batman Forever. Bruce as a boy falls down a hole into a
long-standing cave under Wayne Manor, and he comes across the bats that made
him feel such fear.
From there, the film throws the audience into unfamiliar
territory. Bruce is in the midst of traveling the world, training and trying to
understand the criminal mind. This is the only film that has ever shown the
training that went into becoming Batman, and it really gave the gritty feel of
an international underworld.
Here, he meets Henri Ducard, who turns out to be R’as al’Ghul
using the alter ego. People have used this as a point to complain because
Ducard was one of Bruce’s actual trainers, and making him an alter ego
cheapened the character. I disagree.
Neeson played the part of Ducard faithfully the entire time.
The transition to R’as was done, albeit as a copout, but it was because R’as is
the philosophical warrior who shows just how much of a line Batman treads
between hero and executioner. Ducard really isn’t an A-list rogue and couldn’t
carry out a plan the way the League of Assassins (Shadows in the film) could.
I like how Ducard and R’as both came out in this film. Would
it be better if Ducard was an equal-level person teaming with R’as under a
different name? Perhaps, but it didn’t add an unnecessarily convoluted element
into the hero-villain dynamic like Tim Burton did to the Batman-Joker
relationship. I like the move.
Another complaint is that the training takes too long and
distracts from the film. Again, I don’t agree at all. The training introduced
key points: Needing to be more than a man to be a symbol, smoke balls to
escape, fear-inducing plants that will make up the Scarecrow’s gas, etc. And
unlike Returns, which dwelled in two
origin stories that REALLY don’t are not that complicated in the comics, the
whole setup for the film comes from here and it’s done in an exciting manner.
I really feel the relationship between Bruce and Ducard, and
it’s clear later on in the film that they have respect for each other despite
falling on different sides of the issue of killing.
After Bruce refuses to kill, and the Assassins annihilate
their base during the fight, Bruce finally calls up Alfred and is taken back to
a world that had long pronounced him dead. Again, I like that little touch
because in real life, if a billionaire travels the world, paparazzi aren’t far
behind. It makes more sense for Bruce to be considered dead during his
training.
By the way, throughout the origin, I felt like everyone was
playing their part brilliantly. Thomas and Martha Wayne, young Jim Gordon and
Alfred all play their parts to perfection. Alfred kind of irks me with
monologues later on, but it’s not as bad as the next film and none of it I
would consider bad.
Upon his return, he comes to realize that the man who had
run the company in the Waynes’ absence wants to move away from their vision and
has begun strong-arming the Waynes’ supporters and piecing the company off for
sale. Once again, a good showing of middle ground in the world – he’s not really
breaking major laws, he’s just a jerk, and jerks are a part of life too.
By this point in the story, it is clear that the Mob has
pretty much won in Gotham. They have corrupt individuals in the police and
justice system. As such, people like Gordon (played by Gary Oldman) and Rachel
Dawes (played by Katie Holmes) are simply fighting to make sure innocents aren’t
killed by the madness.
The Mob here is supplying drugs, which are getting mixed
with fear toxin, and selling them to Scarecrow, who works as an Arkham Asylum
psychiatrist. He is working with R’as, he believes, to hold the city hostage by
threatening to use the gas, but R’as actually plans to use it to level Gotham
and its corruption.
Needless to say, this is not a kid-friendly Batman film. But
it provides a world in which it feels like a Bat-Man could actually exist. That
was very much the way Frank Miller tried to portray the world in Year One, but
he did it more by making the heroic figures as flawed as the villains, just
through less egregious problems.
By this point, Wayne finally gets the equipment he will need
from Lucius Fox, including some kind of insane tanker that is supposed to be
the original Batmobile. The tank looks awesome, but one issue I have with it it’s
too extreme. It’s by far the craziest thing in the film and it probably
eliminates most people from being Batman right there.
Well, Batman makes an impact, taking out the mob boss,
Falcone, and saving Rachel. I will say about Bruce and Rachel’s relationship:
It plays much better in the flashbacks. That may be the intent because of his
extended stay away, but it wasn’t amazing. Holmes played Rachel passably – it’s
not great, but it beats the hell out of her replacement.
I haven’t talked about Scarecrow yet, but he is incredibly
menacing. It is absolutely awesome to see the character on the big screen and
made as a threat. I’m good with him being an unassuming, non-threatening man,
but he is a little disappointing when translated into the movie.
He succeeds at poisoning the water supply, drives Falcone
insane and nearly kills both Bruce and Rachel in separate instances. All the
while, Fox is able to create an antidote, and Gordon becomes Batman’s ally at a
time when the current commissioner doesn’t want vigilantism. (He should be more
concerned about corruption, but whatever.)
The scene with the Batmobile is, again, unrealistic, but it’s
beyond awesome. I gladly suspended my disbelief for that.
Finally, R’as shows up and burns down Wayne Manor, leading
to the final fight, where Bruce learns there’s a difference between not killing
and not saving. Rachel decides she can’t be with Bruce because Batman is the
dominant personality, and she will wait for Batman to fix the city, just in
time for a tease of the Joker.
I absolutely love this film. It was a unique idea to try to
embrace Batman as the only superhero with a tie in realism and make the film
the way that they did. This movie serves as proof that the origin can be one of
the most fun stories if done well.
It’s a unique take on the universe and has set up for a
legendary trilogy. It is exactly why I don’t knock Spider-Man for its reboot.
Bruce Wayne is portrayed well during his training, and his
weak portrayal of a playboy can be attributed to the fact that he’s getting
used to the role. His Batman voice is also pretty good here, though it’s a
little off-putting.
This film is actually better than I remembered and somehow
is underrated despite its brilliance. I am going to give it 4 out of 4 stars and 9.3 out of 10.
The big dog is tomorrow – The Dark Knight. Be ready.
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