Christopher Nolan’s hyperbolic reboot turns Bruce Wayne into the most important man in the world.
This week: Batman’s birthday party.
Last time:Adam and Evil.
Christian Bale in ‘Batman Begins’.Everett Collection
See you next Waynesday, whenThe Dark Knightrises, andDark KnightRisesfalls.
Fights six men at once, and wins.
Ascends a frozen mountain with no climbing tools.
‘Batman Begins’.Warner Bros. Pictures
Is the best ninja.
Climbs back down the frozen mountain, with no tools, carrying a Liam Neeson on his shoulders.
Maybe it wasn’t six men; maybe it was seven?
When they rumble in the mud, the camera lurches and the editing chops.
You have to remember, though, this was the new millennium.
Nolan has a cerebral reputation.
2005’sBatman Beginsis the first Batman movie where a bad guy self-identifies as a Jungian archetype.
“Can they kill mebeforebreakfast?”
is the first full sentence Christian Bale says onscreen.
You could imagine that line coming from Tango or Cash.
Of course, no one ever told Tango and Cash they had to become an idea.
By 2005, the lingering image of Movie Batman was a faded Xerox memory of Austrian raygun ice.
(9/11, question mark?)
None of that reads today.
The villains arethevillains of history.
“We sacked Rome!”
says Ra’s al Ghul (Neeson).
“Loaded trade ships with plague rats!
Burned London to the ground!
Every time a civilization reaches the pinnacle of its decadence, we return to restore the balance.”
Now he wants to destroy Gotham City: Total obliteration.
Freeze and Poison Ivy had the same idea inBatman & Robinfor emotional reasons: Avenge Wife, Save Trees.
It was stupid, but Ra’s al Ghul’s motivation is philosophical, which is boring.
Neeson gets to play a big twist, and the film’s successcareened his career into a road wellTaken.
Here’s an Irish guy with a fake French name and a (real?)
Arabic name who employs at least two Asian body doubles: I dunno, dude.
He and his under-horn facial hair get stuck in umpteen variations of the prototypical Christopher Nolan scene.
You know how it goes.
A person, well-dressed, explains something complicated.
Another person, well-dressed, listens.
The explainer might be smiling.
Eventually, they both frown.
It’s the language of religion or a TED talk.
Worth pointing out that Batman had already begun in half the Batman movies ever made.
So the pitch here is not novelty, but abundance.
You won’t believe how much Batman begins.
“As a man, I’m flesh and blood,” Bruce tells Alfred (Michael Caine).
“I can be ignored, destroyed.
But as a symbol… as a symbol, I can be incorruptible.I can be everlasting.”
Does he want to be a god?
(“Swear to me!")
He doesn’tnotsound like a terrorist.
How seriously should we take all this, though?
The screenplay was co-written by David S. Goyer, who is awful.
So I feel confident giving Nolan all the credit for the most interesting layer Begins adds to Batman.
Ra’s al Ghul teaches Bruce that “theatricality and deception are powerful agents.”
Nolan loves his illusionists: magicians, dream-builders, an investigator faking mysteries to solve.
His best movies all seem to be about moviemaking.
(His worst movie is about Murph.)
You cannot see straight or move painlessly.
The bathroom requires backup.
That is Batman realism.
This is not that.
Since the bad guys are the very worst ever “We sacked Rome!”
escalation demands the Waynes become saints of post-industrial civilization.
He’s some kind of Roosevelt for a nonspecifically retro Depression.
“And at the center: Wayne Tower.”
Pause on that for a moment.
“Routed it right into Wayne Tower, along with the water and power utilities.
Kind of made Wayne Tower the unofficial center of Gotham Center.”
If you’re keeping track, that’sboththe utility cards inMonopoly.
Talking too much about the Waynes will make any essay into rantingJokerfanfiction.
ButBatman Beginsis Wayne as hell, with enough executive chicken soup for the family firm’s IPO subplot.
Historical heroism runs in the blood.
In death, Bruce’s parents become society-rescuing martyrs.
“Their murder shocked the wealthy and the powerful into action,” Alfred tells Bruce.
There are reviving moments of sincere awe.
As sunrise ends his first night out, the Caped Crusader lingers on a turret.
The flying camera soars by him.
And the Tumbler is a wonder.
“At least tell me what it looks like,” one exasperated cop asks over the radio.
The joke is you’re free to’t describe it.
Not snazzy, but weirder than I remember.
The split windshield looks like two eyes, with the rocket launcher nasally located in between.
Christopher Nolan, a serious man?
His Batmobile sneezes fire.
Ever-serpentine Murphy had to play decoy duck for the big Neeson twist, which relegates him to henchman status.
Instead, the visions we see are cut-rate spooky.
(Watch out, Scoob, I think a saw a sku-sku-skull!)
It’s a paradox, though.
In this Gotham, all roads lead to a giant tower labeled WAYNE.
A credulous observer would praise the script’s symmetry: ah, of course, Batmanisthe city!
Does Bruce Wayne even really like Gotham, though?
He’s from there the way a Montauk resident is from the Bronx.
Tim Burton’s Gotham was unknowable, with an expressionist backdrop never quite in focus.
Its citizens were lonely and sarcastic.
InBatman Begins, even minor characters have been briefed on our hero’s internal struggle.
The patriarchal thing is not subtle.
Bruce calls Wayne Manor “my father’s house.”
“It’s not just your name, it’s yourfather’sname,” is how Alfred chastises Bruce.
Rachel and Bruce have, being generous here, sibling chemistry.
He perks up at the first part.
A defender would probably creditBeginswith radical sensitivity.
Bruce Wayne never stops thinking about his father, becausenobodyever stops thinking about his father.
Is it rude to admit that I think Thomas and Martha are just boring?
The movies' constant fascination with their deaths seems more cheap than empathetic.
(The best Bat-films barely mention them at all.)
Nolan is savvy enough to view their existence as crucial PR.
I think a better defense ofBeginswould steer into that Oedipal skid.
Here’s an adventure film about a boy who wants to kill his father, and succeeds.
All subconscious, though just barely.
An orphaned wanderer finds a new paternal mentor.
So what does Batman do?
He gets daddy’s train blown off the rails and lets his dark father die in the wreckage.
This isn’t a tragedy.
It’s Mission Accomplished.
