Review of Batman Begins (2005) by Jont. — 28 Feb 2008

This movie took the premise of a rich kid who lost his parents to a mugger then grows up to become a man who dresses in a costume and fights bad guys and, through the back story, made it seem believable - practically inexorable.

The path from victim to revenge-seeker to trainee to symbol and force of justice is traced out in such a way that you can believe that someone mght walk that path and ultimately don the cowl. All the usual "WTF" stuff from the comics and the movies are explained - why do his gloves have the fins? Why is the batmobile equipped with a jet engine and where did he get it? Why the cape? It even answered one of my biggest beefs about the Batman movies to date: "Why would Commissioner Gordon trust a vigilante whose identity is unknown?" And thanks to this movie, we learn that their association and trust goes back to before Gordon becomes the Commissioner.

The undercurrent of the movie is "fear" - Bruce's fear of the bats, the fear Falcone talks of before his goons turf Bruce out in the street, the fear that people feel that keeps the mob safe, Bruce's desire to spread fear amongst the criminals and, of course, the Scarecrow and his fear gas.

As the fear-of-bats thing is pivotal to the make-up of Bruce Wayne and instrumental in the devising of Batman, it was inspired genius bringing in the Scarecrow as one of the villains. Far superior to all the previous Batman movies.