Viewinder Reviews

Review: Batman Begins (2005)

Nolan doesn’t understand people, emotions, character or story.

I talk about this in my entry about The Dark Knight Rises (2012), which was easily the worst of these three Batman films (and let’s be clear: the main reason there’s been so much discussion of Nolan‘s Dark Knight trilogy is because of Heath Ledger‘s Joker in the middle film – an all-consuming performance which Nolan apparently neither guided nor much understood). It’s especially disappointing in Batman Begins, given how promising the setup is: a gritty, realistic telling of the Batman story, using some of the more conceptually interesting characters from the comic, beautifully made on real locations and featuring heavyweight performers. Yet ultimately, director Christopher Nolan wastes the opportunities he’s created for himself, squandering them on a storyline which ultimately degenerates into cartoonish-villain-masterplan chicanery (poison the water supply? Really? Again?).

The most apparent of the film’s comic book references is Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli‘s Batman: Year One (1987), and some of the set pieces are beautifully reimagined in Batman Begins:

Batman: Year One (1987), by writer Frank Miller and artist David Mazzucchelli

Of the two villains, Scarecrow is a vividly realised translation from his often kooky comic version to Nolan’s grounded universe, and Cillian Murphy‘s Dr Crane is clinically sleek and creepy. The other villain, however, is more of a missed opportunity. In the comics, Ra’s Al Guhl, particularly in the ’80s and ’90s, was one of Batman’s more ethically challenging villains: an eco-terrorist and an alchemist, whose daughter is the one woman who married Batman and who ultimately bore his child:

Batman: Son of the Demon (1987) by writer Mike W. Barr and artist Jerry Bingham

The relationship between Ra’s and Batman was a complex and enduring one, primarily because the insanity of Ra’s immortal mission is rooted in an understandable if extremist passion for the Earth’s preservation, but also because of the tragedy in Ra’s own life. Ra’s mirrors Batman as both dialectic crusader and primal savage, and each is marked by his respect for the “Detective”:

Batman: Birth of the Demon (1992), by writer Dennis O’Neil and artist Norm Breyfogle

Yet Nolan abandons all this, instead turning Ra’s into a guy with a grudge against a city (again: why? What did Gotham, as an entire city, do to him? Why is Gotham the epicentre of planet Earth?). While Liam Neeson‘s portrayal is as charismatic as it is sinister, Nolan’s Ra’s lacks eco in his terrorism, his motives more abstract, and as a result, lacks anything that makes him remarkable or even sympathetic as a villain or a character.

Further Viewing

In utilising a four-corner opposition structure, in which characters have “contrasting values, not just conflicting goals”, here’s Just Write‘s compelling case for why Batman Begins is great, actually:

The ’90s Batman: The Animated Series, and many of the earlier subsequent DC Animated Universe movies, manage to pull off almost every time what Nolan (and most other film adaptors of comics) fail to do: not condescend towards the material or the audience. Captain Midnight looks at What Makes Batman: The Animated Series Great:

Demon Batman was a practical effect (via Film Facts):

Cillian Murphy, who plays Dr Crane / Scarecrow, originally auditioned for Bruce Wayne / Batman (via All The Right Movies):

Solved: how to turn The Dark Knight Rises (2012) from mere spectacle into an actual story – using elements already in the movie:

Review: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)