Batman Begins
Adventure
| Rating: |
 |
|
 |
Share this Story
They finally got it right.
The movie is almost overrun with delightful supporting turns. Michael Caine plays Alfred the butler with such heartbroken dignity, you'd think someone told him this was a sequel to Remains of the Day. Tom Wilkinson growls out a wonderful Bill the Butcher accent as Gotham's low-rent crime boss Carmine Falcone, and Morgan Freeman does more with a raised eyebrow than most actors can muster with a monologue as the head of Wayne Enterprises' weapons design department. (Freeman's been in this game just a bit too long to believe that the young billionaire playboy really needs a Kevlar bodysuit "to go spelunking," but he also knows better than to ask too many questions.)
The only bum notes are struck by Katie Holmes. She's too young and fresh-faced to pass as the steely, incorruptible assistant district attorney who's Bruce's childhood sweetheart. (It feels like Holmes is here just to prove that, despite our hero's penchant for hanging around bad parts of town late at night in a skin-tight rubber costume, Batman still isn't gay.)
But the movie belongs, as it should, to Batman.
Conventionally handsome, there's still something closed-off and frightening about Christian Bale. He's true to the original Bob Kane comics, a hissing, feral masked figure moving beneath the shadows. Tim Burton and Michael Keaton brought a deeply felt loneliness to the character, but Nolan and Bale's Batman is caught only in glimpses-hunched, angry and snarling. (Funny how it took them all these years to figure out Batman is supposed to be scary.)
Bale doesn't disappear into the costume. For better or worse you always remember that it's tormented, maybe-crazy Bruce who's stuck inside. Like those wonderful Spider-Man movies, Batman Begins stresses the whole "man" part of the title.
This is tough-minded, engrossing, down-to-earth entertainment. And at long last, it's the big-screen treatment a character like Batman deserves.
|
 GO BACK
More Film Reviews
|
|
|
|
 |
Definitely, Maybe
Definitely….. Maybe…? A dinner date? A cocktail date? Or a date to see this yea...
|
|
 |
Music & Lyrics
Music & Lyrics is a simple and silly romantic comedy filled with both laughs and...
|
|
 |
Strangers With Candy
A disappointing but decent movie based off the brilliant TV Series.
"Stranger...
|
|
 |
Thumbsucker
The film didn't suck that much but it still sucked a little
"Thumbsucker" is ...
|
|
Films A To Z |
|
Email
Facebook
Yahoo IM
Del.icio.us
AIM
Lipstick.com
