Batman Begins (2005)

Long before I discovered the X-Men or even the comic book version of Spider-man, there was Superman and Batman. Superman was simplistic and moralistic even to me as a young boy. It was so clear cut because it was a story about good versus evil. Every time out. Batman was more complex, more dark. It dealt with the notion of justice as well as good versus evil. What I think I found to be most interesting was that Batman/Bruce Wayne questioned himself about his beliefs and convictions. Now, somewhere around the age of 11 or 12 I discovered the "back catalog" of both Batman and Superman thanks to my local library and I discovered that earlier incarnations had been very silly at times, but most shockingly, more alike than they were now, er, then in the mid-80s. Just as I discovered the historical Superman and Batman, I started collecting more books including the Justice League pf America which featured both heroes, but used Superman as a tank and Batman as the mad-scientist or engineer. I started to lose interest, when the Batman, Year One storyline hit. It was brilliant. It ended and so did my subscription to Batman and not much later to all comics.
I wasn't just a fan of Batman in comic books, but the early serials and the show with Adam West. They weren't the same quality as the comic books, but historically they matched the flavor of the time they were created. But then something wonderful happened. Tim Burton made a Batman movie. My buddy and I went and saw it in the old Fox Theatre in Dallas. It was so enthralling that I didn't even notice how the broken down seats gave you a back ache by the end of the first hour. Michael Keaton was a new kind of Batman, the kind I had wanted to see, moody and complex, well more complex than he had been portrayed before. I remember two things about that movie 25 years or so on, first being that I didn't much want to go to the movies with that friend again because he was not a good movie watcher, and that while we both liked the movie, it was for two very different reasons. I predominantly liked the scenery - Tim Burton's Gotham City was indeed Gothic and a great backdrop for the Batman tale, but ultimately I had found the movie not serious enough. Batman was indeed darker than the Adam West version, but Bruce Wayne was distracted and not handsome enough (sorry Michael Keaton) and Kim Bassinger and Jack Palance were throwbacks to the West show. Little did I know what was to come with these movies. My friend? He liked the movie because he had never read Batman before. This was earth-shattering stuff for him. But then, getting his new model railroad magazine and hearing the latest Billy Joel song were about as exciting as his life got at that point.
I won't say that I didn't watch or even enjoy the other Batman movies, they were a fun romp, equivalent to a super hero James Bond (Bond before Daniel Craig of course).
Fast forward to a British bloke who wants to make a new Batman movie, a reboot, that takes the movie along a darker path than the previous franchise. I was completely hooked. Once names started dropping as to which stars were attaching themselves to this project, I became more and more excited. But, if The Phantom Menace was good for anything, it was good for teaching us not to get our hopes up. When Batman Begins finally hit the screen I was completely bi-polar about it. I knew it was going to be brilliant. I knew it was going to be horrible. Secretly I hoped that it split the difference, I could live with that.
To my great surprise, this turned out to be one of the best action movies I've ever seen, and I think the best super hero movie. I don't just mean up to that point, I think this might be the best super hero film. I just checked my movie shelf, and the only movie that comes really close is Hellboy (if Spawn had been consistent throughout, it would be the number two film). Yes. I'm sure about this. The Marvel movies have all been real-worldified or are just not great or both. The DC movies are all over the place, but one thing is consistent, they're not great, but most of them are entertaining enough, the exception being the Watchmen which misses the mark on the comic book in a couple of ways, but is one of the best super hero movies I've seen. Then you have the independents - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tank Girl, Aeon Flux, Mystery Men - all entertaining and funny, with the exception of Aeon Flux which was also real-worldified, but great because of Charlize Theron. The other movies with super heroes in my collection at least are not tied to a comic book and entertaining enough, but not really in competition.
Christian Bale is a very intense actor. I remember first becoming aware of him for a film called the Thin Man where he played the leading role and must have lost 60 or 70 pounds to play the role - he looked like a strong wind was going to snap him in two. He brings the same intensity to Batman Begins. He very definitely is playing Batman who has a secret identity of Bruce Wayne instead of the other way around. I think that's magnificent. This is the darker Batman that I've wanted to see for the last 25 years.
The list of supporting actors in this film is like a who's who of the craft's best: Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and, yes, Katie Holmes. Cillian Murphy, Rutger Hauer and Tom Wilkinson round out the main characters and the actors whom I am familiar with and all three really stepped up to the bar in their performances.
The only complaint I have about this film is the notion of Ra's al Ghul being either played by a Westerner or being so easily defeated and replaced. In the comic book, at least back when I was still reading the series, Ra's al Ghul was a mystic who had come across a way to extend his life to hundreds of years long, and was smarter, faster and stronger than everyone around him, and was also, not English. But, in the context of this movie, this rendition of al Ghul was certainly formidable and an interesting take on the character - I guess achieving his immortality by being the namesake and not the man.
I forget when I learned that this was the first of a trilogy by Christopher Nolan. I was certainly excited, though. Everything that happened likely happened with the endgame in mind, as opposed to the earlier open-ended goofballness. If the next two films were half as good as this one, this would be the best super heor trilogy ever.

Batman Begins at IMDb