Batman Begins (DVD, 2005, Widescreen)

Genius of mystery and intrigue Christopher Nolan (MEMENTO, FOLLOWING, INSOMNIA) helms this prequel to the Batman films based on the DC Comics series, explaining how Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale)--the billionaire prince of Gotham whose parents were killed in an alleyway mugging--transformed into the crime-fighting superhero. With flashbacks to his privileged childhood, young Master Wayne, as he is called by the butler Alfred (Michael Caine), develops a terrible fear of bats when he falls through the backyard garden into a hidden cave. As a young adult, Wayne lives among the League of Shadows, a martial arts group in the mountains of Asia. His leaders Ra's al Ghul (Ken Watanabe) and Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) teach him strength, endurance, and--unfortunately--evil, against which he naturally rebels. Returning to Gotham and reinstating himself as a dapper socialite and the rightful heir to his parents' enterprise, Wayne quickly devises his secret identity, commanding help from the gadgetry expert Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman). With one eye on his childhood playmate Rachel (Katie Holmes)--now a beautiful woman and dedicated lawyer--and the other on his mission to save Gotham from criminal corruption, Batman makes his fledgling debut. But when the blue-blooded mastermind Dr. Crane (Cillian Murphy)--who steals every scene with chilling menace--taints the water system with a hallucinatory substance, Batman realizes he has met his first true opponent. An attitude of grave seriousness elevates BATMAN BEGINS above more cartoony Batman movies, as Nolan crafts a dark drama that thrives on sci-fi intrigue. Bale strides into the role with grace, adding refinement that is seldom seen in action-oriented films. And while the action scenes explode with high-tech glitz and fast-moving thrills, they are evenly placed among sequences of plot and character development, making for a complex and satisfying viewing experience.

Batman Begins discards the previous four films in the series and recasts the Caped Crusader as a fearsome avenging angel. That's good news, because the series, which had gotten off to a rousing start under Tim Burton, had gradually dissolved into self-parody by 1997's Batman & Robin. As the title implies, Batman Begins tells the story anew, when Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) flees Western civilization following the murder of his parents. He is taken in by a mysterious instructor named Ducard (Liam Neeson in another mentor role) and urged to become a ninja in the League of Shadows, but he instead returns to his native Gotham City resolved to end the mob rule that is strangling it. But are there forces even more sinister at hand?
Cowritten by the team of David S. Goyer (a veteran comic book writer) and director Christopher Nolan (Memento), Batman Begins is a welcome return to the grim and gritty version of the Dark Knight, owing a great debt to the graphic novels that preceded it. It doesn't have the razzle dazzle, or the mass appeal, of Spider-Man 2 (though the Batmobile is cool), and retelling the origin means it starts slowly, like most "first" superhero movies. But it's certainly the best Bat-film since Burton's original, and one of the best superhero movies of its time. Bale cuts a good figure as Batman, intense and dangerous but with some of the lightheartedness Michael Keaton brought to the character. Michael Caine provides much of the film's humor as the family butler, Alfred, and as the love interest, Katie Holmes (Dawson's Creek) is surprisingly believable in her first adult role. Also featuring Gary Oldman as the young police officer Jim Gordon, Morgan Freeman as a Q-like gadgets expert, and Cillian Murphy as the vile Jonathan Crane. A great addition to your collection.

Christopher Nolan and his co-screenwriter, David Goyer have chosen to postpone the crossover of Bruce Wayne (a soulful Christian Bale) into Batman until half way through the new "Batman Begins."
And this is a crucial and important step that Nolan puts off until Bruce walks the earth in search of his own personal nirvana... in a sort of Christ-like journey to understand himself and his place in the world after his parents are brutally murdered. It is also from this quest that he acquires the knowledge and skills necessary for him to become a warrior, ready and able to combat the ills and rid his town Gotham of all evil-doers.
Nolan's "Batman Begins" is a more macho, masculine film than were the previous movies, which is not to take anything away from Tim Burton's elegiac, gothic and visionary takes on this story. But Burton's world is/was/ and will always be the world of the dreamer: his Batman is more sinned against than sinning. His Batman needs love and understanding while Nolan's wants and needs justice and revenge more than anything else: even the sultry Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes proves to be of little interest to Batman save a chaste kiss at the end of the movie. It's interesting to note that in the previous Batman films we had big beautiful bombshells like Kim Bassinger and Nicole Kidman as the so-called love interests while here, in Nolan's vision we have a more scrubbed clean, working class (Rachel is an assistant D.A.) heroine: a woman who is as interested in righting wrongs as is Batman and not merely someone meant as an adornment to the suave debonair Batman of Val Kilmer, George Clooney or Michael Keaton. It's an important and telling shift from woman as a plush toy to one who is, not only beautiful but also smart and dedicated to a cause other than self-promotion and self-satisfaction.
Christian Bale's Batman is real..i.e. a genuine, fleshed-out, beautifully written movie character: he is conflicted, he makes mistakes, he trusts the wrong people at times and he pays for his mistakes. It is a remarkable casting coup to have Bale in this role particularly since of late he has been playing a spate of radicals...i.e. in "The Machinist," in which he transforms himself into a skeleton...literally. As Bruce Wayne/Batman, Bale dons the mask, assumes the persona, not out of a lust for power but out of a fervent belief that good will always triumph over evil: several times in this film he is brought to task for his trust in the basic goodness of people and one of his mentors ( Liam Neeson as Ducard) even goes so far as to ridicule Bruce as sentimental and weak for it. Though Ducard is his mentor and sensei, this relationship proves to be fraught with ambiguity as the movie progresses to the climax.
What is a Batman film without its villains? But this film is devoid of the cartoon craziness of the Riddler or the Joker. Here we have Cillian Murphy (so good in "28 Days Later") as a scary-as-hell The Scarecrow, alias psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Crane, who spews his psychedelic paranoia and psychosis on an unsuspecting Gotham. His "stuff" is more thrilling and frightening than anything that the aforementioned villains could ever muster.
"Batman Begins" is not only a physically gorgeous film, it is also an emotionally and ideologically complicated one. It wears its heart on its sleeve, yes...but it also has the brains and a profoundly strong back and pumped up physicality to back it up.

Director Christopher Nolan (Memento) can be credited with the first cinematic miracle of the 21st century: resurrecting a flatlined franchise. Having no connection to Tim Burton's first two magnificent installments & moreover Joel Schumacher's uber cheesy last two films which transformed the series into a modernized clone of the slapstick filled Adam West show, Nolan instead returns Batman to his gothic gritty roots. While Tim Burton's original will always be classic, the titular hero of his film had most of his mojo stolen by his twisted arch-nemesis the Joker (played by scene stealing Jack Nicholson). Nolan's refreshed vision of the Dark Knight injects an aspect that was mostly dry (albeit brief flashbacks) from Burton's adaptation: a fleshed out backstory to how billionaire Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) became Batman in the wake of his parents murders. Now donning the cape & cowl of the Caped Crusader is Christian Bale, who pulls off the rare feat of living up to & possibly outdoing Keaton's original role. A first rate supporting cast includes Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson & Gary Oldman amongst several others. Batman Begins ultimately boils down to being a cinema prototype for comic book mythology. Beautiful cinematography, top notch acting/chemistry, a momentum building musical score, & adrenaline rush action set pieces all gel to create what is probably the most prolific supehero film one is likely to ever see.

e never been a big comic book fiend and I haven't been overly excited by recent comic-to-theater films like Spiderman, the Incredible Hukl, etc. But without a doubt - Batman Begins is the best of this recent phenomenon and is a fantastic movie if if you aren't a comic fan or even a batman fan - Batman Begins is done so well, that it really is an excellent movie. Christian Bale is outstanding (as always) as Bruce Wayne and Batman and the rest of the cast is, for the most part, stellar: Michael Caine as Alred is great, Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman are always excellent. My only criticism of the acting - and really of the film - is Katie Holmes as love interest Rachel Dawes... she is awful - has no emotion, is a painfully poor actress, and of course this movie arrived during her Tom Cruise escapade... But enough about Katie and more about Batman:

Batman Begins is more like an epic and a novel than a regular action film - it follows certain themes very nicely throughout the entire plot and does so under a very dark setting. The action scenes are filmed beautifully and the movie is general is a pleasure for the eyes - the DVD is an excellent addition for any big screen TV!

Batman Begins Cast:
Christian Bale .... Bruce Wayne/Batman
Michael Caine .... Alfred
Liam Neeson .... Henri Ducard
Katie Holmes .... Rachel Dawes
Gary Oldman .... Jim Gordon
Cillian Murphy .... Dr. Jonathan Crane
Tom Wilkinson .... Carmine Falcone
Rutger Hauer .... Earle
Ken Watanabe .... Ra's Al Ghul
Mark Boone Junior .... Flass
Linus Roache .... Thomas Wayne
Morgan Freeman .... Lucius Fox