Back in 1989 when the original Batman film came out me and my whole gang of friends went to see the film opening day. It was summer and we’d hit the Northpark I and II in anticipation of seeing Batman. I, personally, was stoked, and we had this goofy thing that we were all going to hold hands until we saw Batman on screen.

We didn’t have to wait long fortunately, or my ADD addled mind may not have stayed in physical form. At the time I really liked Tim Burton’s take on Bruce Wayne/Batman, but I don’t think its aged well. It’s too flashy, too neony (is that a word?), too cartoony and the whole Prince score thing left me a little desensitized to the film. Also, who in the hell ok-d the killing of the best bad guy you’ve got from your canon in the first film? Unless Jack Nicholson was only contracted for one film it was an idiotic move that could have fed sequels for years.

Killing off the Joker led to a downward spiral of lesser and lesser bad guys (Bane, Poison Ivy, Two Face), until we hit rock bottom with the embarrassing Arnold Schwarzenegger as Dr. Freeze (“Adam and Evil!”). George Clooney scratching old-school style on the Batmobile’s CD player, Chris O’Donnell’s incessant complaining and whining. Blah, blah, blah. I’m sure that during Batman Forever (wasn’t that a double album by Queen in 1974?) I prayed “make it end, just make it end, dear lord.”

Starring:
Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, Ken Watanabe
Directed By:
Christopher Nolan
Release Date:
June 15th, 2005
MPAA Rating:
PG-13 for intense action violence, disturbing images and some thematic elements.
Distributors:
Warner Bros. Pictures Distribution
3.5 Star

And now all of that crap that came before has been wiped from my memory hard drive, washed down into the sewer system of the new, grittier, more real-world Gotham in Christopher Nolan’s new film Batman Begins. Gotham is a real city now, not some Tokyoesque-city-of-lights cartoon like in the first film. Wayne Manor is A MANOR where people who loved each other lived and played and watched out for one another. Batman has been made real finally, not a cartoon character that sprang forth from some MTV-addicted commercial director’s brain with flashy style and bright lights and thundering bass. What we’ve had made for us is the story of Batman, with his quirks and faults and guilt and victories; he’s a personas well as an icon.

It seems as if this take on Bruce Wayne’s alter ego was preordained; everyone in the film is as whom they should be. Michael Caine is Alfred, Bruce’s confidant and Butler. Gary Oldman is Captain, then Lieutenant, Gordon. Cillian Murphy is creepy as Dr. Johnathan Crane, magistrate of Arkham Asylum and the future Scarecrow. The other players (Morgan Freeman, Tom Wilkinson, Liam Neeson, Ken Watanabe, Katie Holmes, et al) do good jobs, a combination of both fine acting and an excellent director pulling good performances out of them. Of them I enjoyed Freeman the most for his jolly performance. He forks away from his Million Dollar Baby role as a wealthy man put into a dead-end job but who loves what he does nonetheless.

So, lastly, is Christian Bale any good? Or is he going to be another Val Kilmer? I didn’t have high hopes when I went in. I liked him, as a teen, in Empire of the Sun, but hadn’t had a lot of interest in seeing him in anything else since that film. He did a bunch of films I never saw and then he was in American Psycho, a film I never wanted to see based on a thoroughly reprehensible and revolting book. Then he did some stuff I wanted to see but never got around to (The Machinist and Equilibrium). Will I see them now, based on his performance in this film? Yes. The man nails it. He’s brooding and even funny sometimes. I was impressed by him. He goes from a Chinese prison camp at his lowest to saving the city that his parents attempted to save. Along the way the loner makes some valuable allies as well as some terrifying enemies, but with the panache that someone raised in wealth would have been groomed to have. Of the pre-Nolan Batmans, Michael Keaton was my favorite, mostly because I didn’t feel he was as wooden as his followers. I liked him in a Connery-vs.-Moore kind of way. Keaton is now #2. Bale owns the role.

So, do you think I liked it?

Ha.