Batman Begins: Christopher Nolan reboots the Dark Knight saga with new emphasis on story, characters

I have a confession to make about Batman Begins: it's the best comic book movie I almost never watched.

One of the bad side effects of how Warner Bros. mistreated the Batman film franchise in the mid- to late 1990s was that it made me not want to go see Christopher Nolan's franchise-rebooting film when it was in theaters nearly four years ago.  The first two Tim Burton-made installments - 1989's Batman and 1992's Batman Returns - weren't as bad as the two Joel Schumacher-helmed disasters that followed, but the decision to emphasize visual style and big-name guest villains over story and character development made me skittish about ever watching a film about Gotham City's Caped Crusader.

Even though I read many good reviews about Batman Begins, I remained skeptical. Sure, I knew that Nolan, a British screenwriter/director (Memento, Insomnia) had a reasonably good reputation as a storyteller who prefers substance rather than style.  But, I asked myself, what if I got hooked on his take on the Dark Knight's origins and then another filmmaker came in and tore the Batman franchise down again?

Then I remembered that I had had that same resistance to Star Wars when it premiered in 1977, so when I had the opportunity to purchase a Limited Edition Collector's Set of Batman Begins on eBay, I decided to take a chance and do so.

If someone stands in the way of true justice, you simply walk up behind them and stab them in the heart.

Batman Begins, as the title implies, is essentially the "origins" installment of the saga, doing to the Caped Crusader what Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie did for the Man of Steel over 30 years ago. 

Starring Christian Bale (Empire of the Sun, Terminator Salvation) in the dual role of billionaire Bruce Wayne/Batman, Nolan's reimagining of the beginning of the Dark Knight saga borrows heavily from Bob Kane's original 1930s comic book story and Frank Miller's 1980s graphic novels.

The movie, co-written by Nolan and David S. Goyer (Dark City, Blade) begins with a flashback that takes the viewer back to when Bruce Wayne was eight years old and living in Wayne Manor with his parents Thomas (Linus Roache) and Martha (Sara Stewart).

While playing with his friend Rachel Dawes, Bruce falls into a well and not only breaks his arm, but he frightens a colony of bats that lives within.  The bats, naturally, instinctively flutter all around Bruce and act in self-defense, but the boy (played excellently by Gus Lewis) thinks they're attacking him and develops a deep-seated phobia to the leathery-winged mammals.

But instead of showing the viewer a straight narrative in chronological order, the first act of Batman Begins eases smoothly back and forth over the next two decades in Bruce Wayne's life, focusing on his agonizing search for justice and enlightenment after his parents' senseless murder by a small-time street hood named Joe Chill (Richard Brake).

Bruce blames himself for his parents' death - his fear of bats caused him to ask Thomas and Martha to leave a performance of The Bat at the Gotham City Opera early, thus placing them in Chill's path in the alley outside - and seeks to avenge it somehow, someday.

But after Bruce graduates from university some years later, his plans for personal revenge go south, big time.  After Chill is released from prison at a parole hearing, the two-bit street thug is shot by an assassin hired by Gotham City mob boss Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson), a man Bruce loathes as a corruptor of the city his father helped to rebuild after an economic depression and one of the "true powers" in the city's criminal community.

Bruce travels throughout the world incognito, leaving behind Wayne Manor, Wayne Enterprises, his guardian/butler Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine) and his now grown up friend Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes).   He wants to delve into the criminal mindset to better combat it, so in his trek he commits petty acts of theft and gets himself thrown into prison in various countries, including China.

That's where Bruce meets with Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson), a mysterious figure who approaches him in a Chinese prison.  Ducard apparently knows a great deal about young Wayne and impressed by his fighting skills, and ends up trying to recruit him into a secret ninja-like group known as the League of Shadows.

Ducard introduces Bruce to the League's leader, Ra's al Ghul (Ken Watanabe) and trains him as a warrior against crime, which Ducard believes must be fought ruthlessly.

But once Bruce is skilled enough to stand toe-to-toe with his mentor, he decides that the League of Shadows is not for him when he's asked to execute a prisoner.  Not only that, he balks even more strongly when Ra's and Ducard tell him why he was really trained, which leads to an extremely violent and deadly falling out between young Wayne and his former mentors.

The rest of Batman Begins focuses on Bruce's return to Gotham City, where he not only rejoins Wayne Enterprises and creates an image of a self-indulgent playboy, but he starts the process of becoming the crime fighter known as the Batman.

Henri Ducard: Your compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share.
Bruce Wayne: That's why it's so important. It separates us from them.

Batman Begins sets up what may eventually be a trilogy or even a longer series of films featuring one of the icons of American pop culture with wit and style.  It "introduces"  Batman's network of allies, including tech whiz Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), Sgt.  Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), Assistant DA Rachel Dawes (the only non-canon character, she was created by Goyer and Nolan for the movies) and his loyal butler/father figure, Alfred. 

Of course, Batman's arsenal of weapons, vehicles and the iconic Batsuit is here, too, reimagined by the film's designers with a more real-world feel than those in previous movie and TV incarnations.

Just as important as Batman and his friends in law enforcement are to the movie, so are the villains of Batman Begins. Not only does Bruce Wayne have to contend with thugs, drug dealers and gangsters such as Falcone, but he also has to deal with the crafty Dr. Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy), who uses his position as a staff member of Gotham's Arkham Asylum to perform mind-bending experiments with drugs.  Crane, who terrorizes the city as arch-villain Scarecrow, is unctuous and ruthless.

Nolan's Masterpiece

Considering how low the Batman film franchise had fallen because of the garish style-over-story approach of Messrs. Burton and Schumacher, it is good to see that Nolan, a wunderkind (he's only in his late 30s) decided to give viewers a well-written "origins of" film. 

Batman Begins not only explains the psychological and emotional underpinnings of the Bruce Wayne/Batman duality, but Nolan gives Batman's world more of a real world feel.

In some ways, Batman Begins harkens back to that other DC Comics film franchise starter Superman: The Movie.  Nolan and Goyer not only followed Richard Donner's lead by casting talented A-list actors such as Bales, Caine, Freeman, Goldman (playing a good guy, for a change) and Neeson, but they decided to make Gotham City more realistic by shooting parts of it on location in Chicago as well as in sound stages in London.  Everything that Batman takes its cues from real-life military applications, and the stuff has a prototype look to it as well.  (Pay close attention to The Dark Knight and you'll see what I mean.)

The verisimilitude approach Donner used in Superman is also evident in the approach Nolan uses in Batman Begins. 

Yes, the screenplay is full of witty bon mots and memorable verbal duels, but never do the actors play to the camera or camp it up in a hammy fashion.  The viewer is sucked in to the story from the minute those bats fly across that red sky and form the Batman logo all the way to the end credits....and has his or her appetite whetted for The Dark Knight.  

Although I'm not a huge fan of comic book films, I really like Batman Begins, especially since I have it on the High Definition Blu-ray format and can appreciate the gritty look and effective lighting scheme  Nolan and his crew used in filming the movie.