A Pinoy Blog About Nothing

It’s hard not to like director Christopher Nolan’s Batman: Begins. He’s got the mood down pat. He has the perfect cast in Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe, Liam Neeson and Gary Oldman. He’s captured Bruce Wayne’s angst perfectly. Wayne Manor is as stately as anyone could imagine. The action sequences were big but not over the top. His version of Gotham is rooted in very real cities, unlike the stylized fantasyland of the previous movie. Watch the movie on the big screen for all of these things you’ll probably be entertained.

However, there was something sorely missing for the restart of this Batman franchise. And no it’s not Robin nor the nipples on the batsuit. Some spoilers after the jump.

Nolan decided to explore Bruce Wayne’s obsession with fighting crime in tights. As told countless times in comics, TV shows, books and movies, young Bruce was witness to the murder of his parents Thomas and Martha Wayne. This tragedy gave Bruce the single-minded resolve to fight criminals in Gotham City as Batman.

Nolan tries to answer the questions: How does a billionaire heir become Batman? Where’d he get those “wonderful toys”, as Joker once asked in the Tim Burton movie? Nolan decides to tackle it from the point of view of practicality - as far as comic book fiction practicality goes. A man setting out to fight crime doesn’t just will it to happen, he needed to train. Therefore, Bruce Wayne Pre-Batman gets recruited by Ducard (Neeson) to train with a band of ninjas - The League of Shadows headed by Ra’s Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe). With Ra’s men, Wayne picks up a fighting style or two as well as useful techniques like blending with shadows and making smoke bombs to hide his escape.

When things didn’t go well with the wacky ninjas, Wayne goes back to Gotham and proceeded to build his Bat persona. So where does he get his toys? Being a billionaire certainly helps and he enlists the aid of Lucius Fox (Freeman) to open up the Wayne Corporations’ conveniently forgotten weapons meant for the Defense Department: a mini-tank to build bridges, infantry armor, and fantastic-threads. Hard to imagine these awesome inventions aren’t being mass-marketed but here they were in some dark corner of the Wayne empire with only Fox and Bruce having access to the toy box.

After the preliminary build-up to the creation of Batman, Wayne then proceeds to tackle the Gotham underworld. He targets gangster Carmine Falcone, an old school mobster who has managed to intimidate judges, politicians and policemen to leave him alone. Wayne as Batman helps his childhood friend Rachel (Katie Holmes), now a lawyer from the D.A.’s office, gather evidence to make sure Falcone is brought to justice. Little did Batman know, there were more sinister forces at work than that of Falcone’s.

Writer David Goyer said that the script was based on two Batman stories: “The Long Halloween” and “Dark Victory” by Jeph Loeb and NOT, he says, on “Batman: Year One” by Frank Miller (interview with Miller on Batman Begins on NPR, via Bookslut). We get not just one Bat-villain in Ra’s Al Ghul but two - Dr. Jonathan Crane a.k.a. The Scarecrow. But there are several instances where Goyer couldn’t deny the Miller influence: the thousands of bats helping Batman out of a jam in Arkham, the relationship of Lieutenant Gordon (Oldman) with the Batman, and the ending where Gordon hands out an ominous playing card.

Some highlights:

Batman on top of one of Gotham’s skyscrapers - a living gargoyle - looking over the city. One of the most visceral images from the comics which Nolan successful transferred to the screen.

Crane as Scarecrow on a horse. The “fear mist” unleashed in the Narrows, Jonathan Crane manages to snag a riot policeman’s horse. Coming upon Rachel and a young kid, Crane/Scarecrow appears as a demonic image on top of a fire-breathing horse recalling one of the influences on the creation of the Scarecrow character - Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman.

Batman, getting a dose of Scarecrow’s fear toxins, barely escapes being a bbq-ed bat. What does he do when there’s no Boy Wonder around? Call Alfred of course. Alfred was given a bigger part to play in the young Wayne’s life. He acts as a surrogate parent, a co-conspirator and in more than one instance, saving the Batman’s life.

Like I mentioned, it’s hard not to like this version of Batman. Nolan and Goyer did respect the source material. In some ways though, that reverence for the source material may have hurt it in some way - it took its source way too seriously. And that maybe why Batman works well with other characters. In the comics, Wayne was too grim for his own good. It took other characters to dispel that a bit. Without much of a supporting cast to act as his foil, the brooding takes a heavy toll on the viewer. That’s why the scenes with Caine and Freeman worked as they were allowed to banter with Bale’s Wayne. I’m not asking for Adam West silly nor Joel Schumacher campy but something fun. The X-Men movies were fun. The Prisoner of Azkaban was fun. Batman Begins is a good looking movie but it maybe too dark even for the Dark Knight.

Nitpicking or Fanboy Rantings (feel free to roll eyes here):

* The Waynes go to an opera instead of watching the movie Zorro. While it explains why Martha Wayne may be wearing pearls on a night-out, it takes away one of the reasons where Wayne got the idea of dressing up in black.

* Ken Watanabe is wasted here. He’s perfect as Ra’s Al Ghul.

* Was it just me or was anyone else bothered by Liam Neeson’s fake Van Dyke facial hair?

* Katie Holmes looked too young for Bale’s Wayne. She wasn’t painful to watch but she just seemed out of place. When she gave that speech to Wayne at the hotel where he found Bruce with two European hotties, I was half expecting Paula Cole’s I Don’t Want To Wait to play as she walked away.

However, since Nolan is throwing some of the canon out of the window, if seeing her here means she comes back as Two-Face in the next movie, I’m all for it. Think of it: she knows who Batman is and she’s been exposed to fear inducing chemicals. What’s an acid thrown to the face to put her over the edge? That and being engaged to Tom Cruise. However…

* …Goyer has mentioned that the next two Batman movies would involve the Joker and Two-Face.