Confederate Wing

Eight years after Schumacher’s “bat nipple” debacle, a reboot of the Batman character seemed well due. And as had been the case with Spider-Man and X-Men, a more acclaimed and educated director than usual was selected to handle the reinvention. Nolan threw out the garish nonsense that left audience’s of the previous two Batman movies bitter, and looked to tell a sane and sober origin story. Nothing wrong with this in theory, since Batman is a super wealthy construction and not a super natural one. But when the film’s cornerstone is an ancient clan of mountain ninjas who destroy decadent decaying cities, it must be said that something has gone amiss.

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To the film’s credit, the laughable synopsis is handled well enough that you only realize how insane the proceedings were when summarizing it for a friend. After being robbed of the vengeance of his parents’ murder, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) disappears for seven years to learn how to battle crime and injustice effectively, and generally to understand the criminal mind. This leads him to the League of Shadows, an academy of skilled stealth warriors who monitor the balance of justice in world-class cities, and intervene forcefully where necessary. With the League of Shadows setting its sights on Gotham City, which is being torn apart by the rampant criminal underworld of Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson), Wayne abandons his new colleagues and aims to save Gotham city from destruction.

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But the ninjas and the mob aren’t the only adversaries in this origin story. Batman also has to deal with the fate of his multi-billion dollar empire, the scepticism of the police department, and a mad psychiatrist (Cillian  Murphy) who’s constantly undermining the authority of the courts, and by extension Wayne’s childhood friend and love interest, Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes). If you’re looking to find where bloated superhero movies started, Batman Begins isn’t a bad place to consider first. There’s so much going on that it can become exhausting to keep track of all the threads being interwoven. Some ends don’t even work all that effectively. Take the requisite romantic angle, for example. When Bruce and Rachel kiss in the closing scene, the feeling is less of contentment and more of, “Oh, that’s right. I forgot about this obligation because the film did so little to set it up.” It’s no wonder that hardly anyone remembers Katie Holmes’ involvement.

Not everything about Batman Begins works as well as it could have, largely due to the disparity of its components. This is especially reflected in Gotham City itself, which takes on unique quirks based on the central villain at the moment. The isolated slums floating on an island in the middle of the city just seemed terribly contrived, giving Gotham the feel of a melange rather than a rational place. A minor complaint, to be sure, but if the intention was an authentic portrayal of a rotting metropolis, then it’s of paramount importance that the city feels genuine. Gotham simply doesn’t.

As for the action, well let’s be polite and say that the area is far from Nolan’s forte. Batman’s many brawls lack rhythm and coherence, and the effect of the theatricality is lost with the lack of focus. It’s the drama between the characters which keeps the momentum up. In fact there’s a fairly good short crime/vigilante feature if you strip away the ancillary comic book malarkey. Batman works as a superhero because he’s a well to do person with too much time and far too much money on his hands. Efforts to drench it in juvenile trappings are not only diminishing, but very likely damaging.