Batman Begins - The Hummer of Superhero Movies

Jul

19

Batman Begins - The Hummer of Superhero Movies

≡ Category: Action, Classics That I Hate, Movie Reviews By Country, Not Worth Your Time, Talkin' Trash, United States |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: United States
Genre: Action
Director: Christopher Nolan
Year: 2005

Rating:

CLASSICS THAT I HATE

Let me just say that I started out as a huge fan of director Christopher Nolan. Nolan’s first film was Memento, a spare, surgically precise film noire. It blew me away. That’s why I find the bloated, humorless, Germanically heavy, joyless travesty that is Batman Begins such a disappointment.

I have no doubt that Nolan made the movie he wanted to make and that puzzles me. After the effortlessly profound Memento, which explored the psychology of vengeance through action and nothing else, Nolan spends half of Batman Begins having his characters spout boilerplate philosophical gibberish like he was getting paid by the word. Instead of being profound, this strategy drains his screenplay of all life and humanity.

Liam Neeson, as Bruce Wayne’s mentor, Henri Ducard, can’t help but be defeated by all of the ponderous blather he is forced to spout, but the best screenwriting in the world couldn’t have saved Christian Bale’s performance as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Bale appears constipated throughout the film, grimly intoning his lines like he is trying to pass a particularly jagged piece of stool. (Somehow, people mistake this for intensity.) Michael Caine phones in his lines as Alfred the butler. He also gets saddled with a bunch of embarrassing sub Anthony Robbins self-help twaddle. Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, an engineer in charge of the military weapons division at Wayne Enterprises, fares a little better. As usual, Freeman glows with intelligence, and for a change he isn’t playing a saintly character.

Writing about the acting in Batman Begins, I am struck by what a waste of natural resources it represents. The roster of acting talent in Batman Begins is a virtual Who’s Who of great Hollywood thespians of modern times. Aside from the actors I’ve already mentioned, we’ve got Gary Oldman, Tom Wilkinson, and Ken Watanabe on hand, and yet they come off as rank amateurs at worst, and barely register at best. Only Cillian Murphy rises above the general murk of Batman Begins as the sociopathic psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Crane. He’s genuinely spooky and disturbing. I continue to be amazed at Cillian Murphy’s range in such diverse pictures as Sunshine, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Breakfast on Pluto, and Red Eye. I have yet to catch him in a lazy or incompetent performance.

I am not even going to bother criticising Katie Holmes’ turn as Rachel Dawes, Bruce Wayne’s love interest. She’s already been publicly pilloried for that performance.

Christopher Nolan does no better with visual design, although it is certainly consistent with the heaviness of his concept. The decision to use military hardware for Batman’s gadgets has an undeniable logic, and it makes sense that the military’s designs would be butt plug ugly, but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant to watch on the big screen. The batmobile looks like the folks responsible for the Hummer designed it.

And pray tell, why is the design of Gotham City so blatantly artificial? (And don’t tell me because it’s a comic book — that’s no excuse.) The monorail that plays such a key part in the story of Batman Begins is less convincing than the one featured on the Simpson’s episode about urban renewal. The same goes for gangster Carmine Falcone’s headquarters. It’s just plunked in the middle of nowhere without any organic relationship to it’s surroundings. The sheer incompetence and waste of the production design is staggering. If we are to be concerned about the fate of Gotham City, we have to believe in it somewhat, and we don’t.

Which brings us to the plot. All I’m going to tell you is that some bad guys want to destroy Gotham City and Batman wants to stop them. Why don’t I want to tell you the reason? Because the motives and identities of the bad guys provide what little diversion there is to be had in Batman Begins, and I don’t want to completely spoil the movie for those who haven’t seen it.

How about the action elements? I’m sorry to say that they’re lame. The fighting in a average low budget Hong Kong action movie from the 80s is infinitely superior to anything in Batman Begins. Explosions and gunplay? You can get better from any Lethal Weapon sequel.

Basically, Batman Begins is a waste of celluloid from start to finish. Don’t waste your time.

There’s only one problem with this review. Batman Begins was embraced by the public and critics alike. Why? I can think of a couple of reasons:

1) The psuedo profundity for dummies stuff allows viewers to think that they’re seeing something thoughtful while not forcing on them the inconvenience of actually thinking. It flatters the viewers’ intelligence rather than challenging it, which seems to be the path to riches these days. 2) Everything is photographed and performed as being dark and brooding — even the music by the execrable Danny Elfman is a cartoon version of dark and brooding. Again, this encourages the viewer to congratulate himself on liking something that is edgy, when it is actually pablum.

Note: The latest Batman adventure, The Dark Knight, looks just as wretched as Batman Begins from the trailers I’ve seen, but I still want to see it on account of Keith Ledger’s performance as the Joker. His lines stink, but Keith Ledger manages to inject a fascinating subtext for the character, even in the limited context of a trailer. I’ll report back after I’ve seen the movie.