BATMAN BEGINS (2005)

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"People need a symbol to shake them out of apathy. Something elemental..."

A fresh take on the story of Batman is exactly what this franchise needed. I should say, the new franchise, as Christopher Nolan's take on the character and world is like none we've seen before - in comics or in cinema.

The early history of Batman, as post-Crisis continuity would unfold, begins with the book Batman: Year One, as written by Frank Miller, respectively. In this tale, we meet a young Bruce Wayne and police Sargeant Gordon early in his career. Gordon's partner, Flass, is corrupt as they come. Gordon feels like he is the only true blue cop left in such a vile city as Gotham is. Wayne is coming home from his unmentioned training around the world, in places such as Paris (where he meets a very French Henri Ducard), and the Himalayas (where he trains under his mentor Ra's al Ghul at the League of Assassins HQ). The movie also takes inspiration from elements of Batman: The Long Halloween, a darker tale that also tells the stories of Carmine Falcone, Sal Maroni, and the origin of Two-Face. Nolan would later use this as major inspiration for the sequel.

Such an accurate portrayal and film adaptation is crucial to telling the origin of Batman. Do it wrong, and you've just made the list under Joel Schumacher's name. Fortunately, Nolan gets it right. Not a huge comic book fan, he looked to DC Comics for story, and it's a good thing he did.

I found the likeness of Ken Watanabe's Ra's al Ghul to be perfect, even the shudder of the eyebrow when he talks about Gotham suffering an injustice. A perfect Ra's, in my opinion, taking the comic and the animated series nature of the character and rolling them into one. Likewise, Liam Neeson LOOKED a helluva lot like Henri Ducard, and played the character to a tee.

When we get to Wayne returning to Gotham City, the view of the city as he looks out of the private plane's window is astonishing. So much more of an expanded view we get than any other director could have portrayed, including Burton. The look and feel is simply amazing. As well, the introduction of Falcone running the city is superb. It's almost like it was taken straight out of Year One and converted to film. And so it was. The corruption of the city and the underworld criminals, the mob running the town was beautifully done.

I personally enjoyed the depiction of Scarecrow. If I could have imagined what Dr. Jonathan Crane would look like in a film, when I saw this movie, that was it. The glasses put it over the top for me. You didn't want to mess with this guy. You sort of could tell he was psychologically insane, but not really crossing the borderline of insanity and instead staying in the realm of genius. Cillian Murphy was accurate as The Scarecrow/Dr. Crane, and when I saw the mask for the first time I was speechless. They even kept the noose that hangs down below the neck. The stitches in the mouth... Nolan really did his homework.

As a downside, I did not think that Rachel Dawes was a deserving enough character to be in the movie. She was a very two-dimensional character with not a whole lot of depth and she is not from the comics. Pointless if you ask me, but I understand that Hollywood thinks that if you are to sell movies, there has to be love interests, so there you have it. They probably just didn't want to recycle Vicki Vale.

The cameo of Victor Zsasz in the Jonathan Crane introduction scene was a great homage to the comics and nod to the fans, as well as some other things. The Lucius Fox character was another good portrayal by Morgan Freeman, as I remember him from the cartoon as a mysterious WE person but I like the elaboration in this movie. Now we know how Bats gets "all those wonderful toys."

Gary Oldman is flawless in his role as Gordon and I'm just frankly happy that they finally decide, cinema-wise, to get the Gordon character right. Pat Hingle sucked with a capital S. He hated Batman in the 1989 film and wanted him dead. Then in later movies he is the cop buddy. Don't ask me. I enjoyed seeing pretty much everything in the first installment of this new franchise being done right. Michael Caine is good as well.

The last thing I will comment on is the fact that Neeson came back at the end instead of Watanabe and said that HE was really Ra's al Ghul. That is Nolan's own doing. Ducard was never really Ra's and even though Ducard turned out to be a villainous man later in the comics, he wasn't ever in the league that Ra's was in. In fact, Liam Neeson sort of sucked as a reincarnated Ra's or whatever the explanation was. It should have been Ken Watanabe to come back, cheating death. He didn't act like a decoy, and he could have been much more sinister than Neeson was.

Overall, this movie defenitely deserves 5 stars from me. Well deserved, too. The serious and dark tone of it completely make up for Warner Bros. lack of vision in the earlier titles. Christian Bale exceeds as Bruce and The Bat, Scarecrow, Falcone, Ra's - this movie has everything! A true fan's delight. Now July 18 cannot come quick enough. Heath Ledger as The Joker! Bring it.