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Batman is back,
as he doubtlessly will be for years to come, so long as the box office take continues to
fill the coffers at Warner Brothers. (Batman
Forever grossed over $184 million; Batman
Returns - $163 million.)
Batman Begins delivers what the title promises, telling
Bruce Wayne's story from his traumatic encounter with bats as a child, to his witnessing
the murder of his parents in a street holdup (for which, of course, he assumes the blame),
to the details of his reinvention of himself as a super-hero fighting injustice in Gotham.
The screenplay, by director Christopher Nolan (Insomnia, Memento) and David S. Goyer, is fluid,
efficient, and occasionally imaginative. It is also humorless, heavy-handed, and devoid of
the irony which might have lifted it out of the realm of adolescent comic books.
Especially miscalculated is an extended early sequence in which Henri
Ducard (Liam Neeson) and his band of Ninjas (The League of Shadows), high in the
Himalayas, offer Wayne "a path of true justice" and train him as a warrior. It
turns out that Ducard, et. al., have a philosophy of destructive vigilantism that has a
distinctly fascist ring to it. This is all delivered in dialogue of such stilted
pretentiousness that it makes George Lucas sound like William Shakespeare.
Things improve when the scenario returns to Gotham and Batman is
confronted with an evil gangster and a mad scientist (The Scarecrow) who experiments
on the insane, the latter drawing on fascist associations once again. But, as per formula,
the ultimate villain isn't revealed until near the climactic ending--that is, for those
who haven't already guessed his clearly telescoped identity.
The mise-en-scene for Gotham works well, looking not unlike major
metropolises today, with the addition of a monorail network that adds a futuristic look.
(The monorail also offers the opportunity for Nolan to mimic a Spiderman 2 episode with a speeding
elevated train.) Within the forest of gleaming skyscrapers there is a underside of slums
and poverty, reflecting the theme of economic injustice which pervades the film--the
ever-wealthier capitalist elite ever-plotting to get more for themselves as the legions of
the poor grow ever-larger. Gee, that might even have some political relevance today.
The only female character in the film is Wayne's childhood friend,
Rachel (Katie Holmes), who grows up into a beautiful, crusading assistant D.A. The film is
honest to the Batman zeitgeist in not suggesting any genuine romance between Wayne and
Rachel. The sidekick, Robin, who adds a subtle homoerotic subtext to the legend, does not
materialize in this early history.
Christian Bale, more buffed than ever, is perfectly suited to his role
as Wayne/Batman. If only Nelson had managed to inject a bit of lightness somewhere into
this portrait of neurotic obsession, the performance might have seemed less of a
Johnny-One-Note. A superb cast of supporting actors (Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary
Oldman, Tom Wilkinson) is underutilized--the script doesn't give their roles sufficient
complexity to allow them room to shine.
This is a film that aims for mythical grandeur, underlined leadenly by
a pseudo-Wagnerian orchestral score, only to become mired in pretension to Jungian
psychological veracity. Still, engulfed by the gargantuan IMAX screen and sound system,
the viewer's brain goes into sensory overload and intellectual neutral. Under those
conditions, Batman Begins is an amusing enough diversion, but no one should be
fooled into thinking this "dark" approach has transcended its target audience of
teen-aged males.
- Arthur Lazere
