Bruce Wayne wants revenge for his parents death and in the process of this we see that his goal changes to trying to save Gotham from the corrupt mobsters who are beginning to run it. A very intensive training programme with the League of Shadows is going to put so many different things in notion for Gotham as well as Bruce Wayne.
The opening segment of Nolan’s Batman trilogy which I was looking enough to see in all its glory at the cinema, but with the release date being 2005 and this blog starting in 2009 it has somehow slipped through the net in terms of being reviewed. The best way I think to start is by saying that I always forget how great this film is, everything is pushed towards The Dark Knight but this film sets the background and build up every so nicely to that film.
Batman Begins is exactly what the title says, the beginning of Batman and we are about to see how Bruce Wayne became the dark knight like we have never seen it before. His training was intense and very important as well, surely we cannot believe that Wayne just had superhuman powers of strength, we know that he is a very different type of superhero he is a self trained man. I love those scenes as it shows that it did not just happen for him overnight. Also I must mention about how the “car” and all of the gadgets including the suit come about, those are very good scenes showing trial and error had to be used.
Ra’s Al Ghul the leader of the League of Shadows sees great potential in Bruce and sees that Ducard gives him the proper training. There’s a slight problem though when Bruce does not want to become an executioner, again a very important character building method of setting so many scenes. Nolan does that remarkably well and you are firmly on his side.
The villain of the piece the Scarecrow which is pretty frightening at times as he makes the person see what they fear most in the world. If your truly scared of something that is very difficult to move past, we just then need to think about this and link it back to Bruce’s battle and why he creates Batman. He’s scared of bats therefore decide’s to turn his fear around and use it against others. I think that makes a very interesting point to think about in life can you combat your fear and use it in your favour instead.
Performance wise it is all very impressive, Christian Bale is very strong in his first outing as Bruce Wayne and mixes the party fun loving persona well with the hardcore training. Michael Caine is well Michael Caine as Alfred but he pulls it off so perfectly well, add in Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox and Gary Oldman as Gordon you know it is going to just work. Liam Neeson is very strong along with Ken Watanabe but standout “bad guy” has to be Cillian Murphy as Dr Jonathan Crane all levels of creepiness going on with him as the psychiatrist. Something I do wonder though is what Katie Holmes did wrong as I thought she was good as Rachel?
This film should never be overlooked, I am pretty much talking mainly to myself when I saw that because I don’t feel I have watched and appreciated it anywhere near as much as The Dark Knight. Let’s not forgetting the ending of this film leads straight into The Dark Knight. Very pleased with myself for upgrading to Blu Ray for the trilogy, it really is fantastic filmmaking for this film and I cannot believe I don’t give it enough credit I hope this review or rambling has more than made up for that!