Review of Batman Begins (2005) by Trevor R — 21 Nov 2014

Despite the lamentable Hollywood trend of the "grounded and gritty reboot" that this film helped kick start, Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins" is still a tremendously effective pulp adventure and a satisfying origin story for one of the 20th century's most enduring modern mythological figures.

I've never much cared for Tim Burton's dark fantasy take on Batman that merely borrowed iconography, yet had little interest in exploring the unique aspects or psychological underpinnings of the character. The script for "Begins," on the other hand, does a solid job at highlighting what makes Bruce Wayne stand apart from any other avenging vigilante-- primarily, the dramatization of revenge and justice as being entirely distinct goals is really well-handled and works to invest the audience in the notion that an angry dude dressing up like Dracula and beating up criminals is a fairly reasonable idea. It's one of the better superhero origin stories on film for this reason, as the slow assemblage of the mythos is always tied back to the personal arc of the title character.

This methodical process sometimes drains a bit of the fun out of the proceedings, and the grim (and supposedly "realistic," but I use that term lightly) nature of Nolan's whole approach often rubs uncomfortably against the more blatant comic-book-esque elements (especially the goofily over-the-top final set piece).

Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and Cillian Murphy are standouts among an overall excellent supporting cast, although Katie Holmes is stranded in a truly awful damsel-in-distress role (I'd say she feels miscast, but there's no actress that could make this character work). Christian Bale is perfectly cast though, and even if his bat-voice descended into near parody in the two sequels, he does does extremely fine work in this promising start to the franchise.