Review of Batman Begins (2005) by Antwon B — 02 Feb 2015

Batman Begins is a 2005 superhero film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman, co-written and directed by Christopher Nolan. It stars Christian Bale as Batman.

Batman Begins is a reboot of the Batman franchise that was completely derailed by Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin in 1997. That film was a complete disaster. They really missed the point about who the Batman is. And perhaps by a lesser degree, the same holds true for the other films. With the exception of Batman forever which in my opinion is an excellent film.

Bruce Wayne as a kid falls into a well an gets attacked by a swarm of bats. Later on he attends an opera with his parents Thomas and Martha Wayne. During the opera, young Bruce observes a performance that reminds him of the swarming bats that he had encountered in the cave. He asked to be excused. The family exits the theatre thru a back ally when they encounter a street thug named Joe Chill. Chill robs the Wayne's shooting and killing both Thomas and Martha Wayne leaving Bruce an orphan. Eventually Bruce is raised by his butler Alfred Penneyworth. After becoming disappointed with the criminal justice system, Bruce decides to leave Gotham city for 14 years. During this time he studies with a group of killers known as the League of Assassin's led by Ra's al Ghul. Eventually Bruce learns the ways of the assassin and the ninja but developed the code of not taking lives. After a series of events Wayne returns to Gotham city as Bruce Wayne the billionaire playboy and the Batman the dark knight avenger. His goal is to wage war against the criminal underworld.

Batman begins premiered in the summer of 2005 to generally positive reviews. The film was budgeted at $150 million and it opened at $45 million. And the world wide gross was $374 million. The film is considered a success and would go on to sponsor two sequels, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight rises.

The goal of this film is to get the audience to care for both Bruce Wayne and The Batman, and I think that they succeeded in this. I found this Batman/Bruce Wayne to be both friendly and engaging. The raspy voice that Christian Bale used as The Batman was off putting and he sounds like a guy smoking too many cigarettes. He was attempting to disguise his voice from people, but it was odd when he used the voice when Batman was alone .

Both Tim Burton and Michael Keaton, from Batman (1989), have said they were impressed by this film.

"Batman Begins" inspired James Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccolli to reboot the James Bond franchise and reinventing the character of British secret agent James Bond and making him much darker and more realistic. Thus the Birth of Daniel Craig's Casino Royal.

Christian Bale had read some of the graphic novels long before he played Batman. He said that in the year 2000 a friend lent him a copy of the graphic novel "Arkham Asylum," which he thoroughly enjoyed and made him wonder why that version of Batman hadn't been portrayed on screen. In preparing for the role Bale said he made a conscious effort to avoid watching the performances of previous Batman actors so he could approach the character from a fresh perspective. Personally I believed that this film is based more on Batman year one, and Batman the long Halloween. Because this film used similar scenes characters and plot points like those comics.

The music was composed by Hans Zimmer and Zimmer named the tracks in the soundtrack after types of Bats. The first letters of tracks 4-9 in the soundtrack, spell "BATMAN". ("Barbastella", "Artibeus", "Tadarida", "Macrotus", "Antrozous" and "Nycteris").

The music was beautiful and haunting. It's the best score to set up a moody atmosphere.

The Best version of The Batman to date.