MOVIES: Batman Begins

I saw Batman Begins with Ian Brill on Saturday, and we had very different opinions about it. At the end, Ian said, "We've just seen the best superhero movie ever made." I replied, "I wouldn't say that at all."

I didn't hate it, although, the more I think of it, the less I like it. But my main problem with the film was a pretty big deal-breaker. I liked almost everything in it -- except Batman.

I thought the cast was great, from Christian Bale, who is an excellent Bruce Wayne, to Michael Caine as Alfred, to Morgan Freeman as gadget-supplier Lucius Fox, to Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon, to Liam Neeson as Bruce Wayne's combat trainer Ducard, to Cillian Murphy as Dr. Crane/the Scarecrow (Ian had to point out to me that he was the guy from 28 Days Later). The weak links were Tom Wilkinson -- not for his acting (which is always brilliant) but for his inability to pass as an Italian gangster named Falcone, with his phony meatball accent -- and Katie Holmes, who is nice to look at, but is (mostly) unable to pass as a grown-up.

And I thought the beginning of the film was wonderful, with its exploration of Bruce Wayne's fear and guilt following the murder of his parents, and his subsequent quest to banish those feelings, or at least to twist and harness them into something else he can master -- like the need for vengeance. The flashbacks to Bruce's childhood, before, during, and after his parents' deaths, the scenes at Ra's Al Ghul's stronghold, learning the ninja craft of stealthy combat, and the scenes following Bruce's return to Gotham, in which he gears up for his eventual metamorphosis into Batman -- those are all wonderfully entertaining, smartly written and sharply acted.

But for me, it all falls apart when he actually becomes Batman. When Batman first appears, all the subtlety and dramatic weight is suddenly jettisoned for corny one-liners and trailer-ready "hero" moments: "Where is he?" asks a goon; "Right here," Batman rasps, hanging upside down behind him. "Who are you?" asks Falcone. "I'm Batman!" he says -- exactly as Michael Keaton did in the first Tim Burton Batman (and I have to tell you... Keaton did it better). What happened to the (relative) realism and believable characters established in the beginning of the film? Gone, right out the window, the second Batman shows up.

Then there's the action sequences. The fight choreography looked like it might have been well done. Unfortunately, I couldn't tell, because, just like with every other post-MTV/Michael Bay/Tony Scott ripoff action flick of the past 20 years, the action is cut together in microsecond snippets, with the camera whirling by as if the cameramen were playing hot potato with it. For the first fight sequence, I might've been able to tolerate that, because, as Ian said, the film was demonstrating how Batman is a shadow, how he can't be clearly seen by the criminals. And I agree with that assessment, and that choice of editing -- for the first fight. After that, you've made your point; if the fight scenes continue to look like shit, if we as the audience can't see what's going on, that is a flaw, that is a fault on the part of the filmmakers. That is a bad decision, and it makes for bad action scenes.

Even the big car chase scene, which was fairly exciting, and fairly well-portrayed, in that I could mostly tell what I was looking at, suffered from poor editing; just a half-second longer on some of those cuts would've made the difference between just seeing shit get smashed, and really feeling the impact of it. Instead of seeing an obstacle coming, and having a split-second to react with anticipation and anxiety, you just see cars flipping in the air with no feeling of build-up or consequence.

Okay, and Bale as Batman -- I'm sorry, but he does not work. I was with him every step of the way as Bruce Wayne, but the second he turned into Batman, he lost me. First, there's that voice, which is a ridiculous, cartoonish whisper-rasp that grates on my nerves. Then, there's the exaggerated mouth movements he makes, as though he were speaking for the benefit of a lip-reader sitting across a football field from him. And just the way he carries himself -- there's something lacking there, too, a little harder to define. It's like -- he's always just a guy in a costume, he never really becomes Batman.

Ian defended those elements of Bale's portrayal; he says that they indicate Bruce Wayne's amateur status as Batman, that the performance is intentionally rough because he's still learning how to be Batman. I disagree; I think it's simply bad acting choices and bad direction. I even tried to project my own explanations onto Bale's performance: his large mouth movements, I told myself, are because the speaking motion of Bale-as-Bruce-Wayne's mouth is so distinctive (and it really is; Bale's mouth moves in a peculiar and very identifiable way), he had to change it to conceal his identity. Maybe that is why Bale's Batman speaks in such a silly way, or maybe that's wishful thinking on my part.

Because I wanted to like this movie. Despite very little initial enthusiasm for it, I knew going in that I liked most of the actors in it, I liked the director, Christopher Nolan, and I'd seen plenty of good-to-great reviews for the film. And the opening, pre-Batman scenes set me up to believe that I was witnessing greatness. I was completely wrapped up in this film. And then Batman had to come along and ruin it.

I still enjoyed the film; there are enough good character moments and clever storytelling throughout that I would recommend it with very little reservation. In fact, I'm almost sure most people will like the Batman stuff far more than I did. But to me, Batman struck all the wrong notes in an otherwise masterful symphony.

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In other news, I'll be out of town for the next week, with little or no access to the internets, so no updates for a while. I'm just glad I'm going to Colorado, since I know this guy will be in California!