Batman Begins

Batman Begins was great fun – everything it should have been! A cheesy plot, some cool oriental-style fighting, a criminal organisation who are evil because they want to do to Gotham what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah, and a frickin’ ace car chase sequence!

Batman was always the only DC character I liked. It wasn’t because he was about the only superhero who was essentially just an ordinary guy (his utility belt was basically a superpower), but mostly because he had such great bad guys (The Joker, The Penguin, Catwoman), a cool image, and an adorable sidekick.

But seeing this movie, it’s amazing how far Batman has come since the old TV series, early comics and even recent movies, all far too camp to be taken seriously. Where Batman Begins really succeeds, like Burton’s movie, is in taking itself seriously while acknowledging how ‘theatrical’ the idea of costumed superheroes is. While a new Superman film probably wouldn’t work, because you CAN have Batman seem feasible because of his technology and his believable reason for wearing his costume (both to blend into the dark and to be a symbol), the concept can work even in a context that regards superheroes as childish and camp.

Plus there was some great humour, mostly thanks to Michael Caine, who surprised me by making a great Albert the Butler, East London accent and all! Indeed, a great supporting cast were one of the movie’s biggest strengths: strong turns from such big names as Rutgar Hauer, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman – and how far Tom Wilkinson has come! Now he’s playing drug lords with Bronx accents in major movies. Well done to him.

In a nutshell, Bruce Wayne leaves Gotham, furious that the man who killed his parents (who CAN still be the Joker, surviving being shot; ‘he’s a double homicide’, said Oldman’s character at the end) has been released by corrupt officials. He finds a ninja academy on a mountain and trains to be a great martial artist, and returns to Gotham to become Batman (through spending and the right friends: nice to see hard work making a hero – and fancy gizmos). He busts the drug lord who protected his parents’ killer, but soon discovers that there is more to the criminal underworld than it seemed – and a (rather contrived) plot involving a machine that will destroy Gotham soon unfolds.

A tad overlong, and very predictable, it was nonetheless an extremely enjoyable movie, with lots of great setpieces, brilliant moments of humour, quickly-edited, snappy scenes and hilarious cheesy dialogue and plot. Perfect popcorn entertainment, even if it would make a RUBBISH book!