Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Four stars

That was worth a midnight showing.



Batman Begins is a great movie. Probably the best one I've seen this year. One doesn't need to be a Batman fan to like this movie. The story is excellent, the acting superb, and shots beautiful. There's a great twist at the end that I should have seen coming, but did not. I walked out of theater realizing that I had just seen the summer blockbuster. This movie will be huge.

I am going to talk about the specifics of the movie so if you want to be completely unspoiled, you should stop reading. I won't be giving any major spoilers, however.

So how do pull off a serious movie about a man who dresses up as a bat to fight crime? By taking it absolutely seriously. (Matt S., if Adam West's Batman is your favorite, this movie is probably not for you...!) We see just how bad Gotham has gotten. It's a cesspool of villiany. We get that it's going to take a superhero to fix this city. We understand how traumatized Bruce Wayne was as a child and not just by the murder of his parents. Bats are a huge part of the trauma; Bruce has a terrible fear of the winged creatures and his fear indirectly leads to his parents' murder. That fear is used perfectly in the story as a vehicle to show Bruce maturing. He overcomes the fear, adopts the bat as his symbol, and becomes Batman. He talks about the importance of the symbol. He must be more than a man fighting crime - he realizes the need to be a symbol to inspire others to fight back against the crime. Bruce Wayne is a fully realized and interesting character. That's why this movie works.

Excellent performances by everyone. Michael Caine is damn funny as Alfred. Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow is almost scarier when he doesn't have his mask on. Scratch that - he is scarier without the mask. Those eyes! Why I have never heard of that actor before now? I did get a bit of a Qui-Gon feeling from Liam Neeson as he's tutoring Bruce in the beginning of the movie, but it still worked well. Morgan Freeman is fun as the inventor of Batman's gadgets. How Bruce gets the gadgets make a lot of sense, too. Loved the batmobile, which was never called that, by the way. Of course, Christian Bale is perfect as the tormented Bruce Wayne.

I might even see this movie a second time, something I don't really do much anymore at all.

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Name: Matt
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I am a Dad and a Husband. An Actor. An Administrator. A Hiker. A Writer. Probably a bunch of other things too. Read my blog and you'll find out more.
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