ALL SCI-FI

[The Spike]

It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.

Bruce Wayne is constantly tortured by his childhood memories when he witnessed his parents being murdered. He's taken under the wing of The League Of Shadows — a deadly ninja assassin army devoted to erasing crime with their own brand of harsh justice. After completing training, Wayne refuses to join them because he doesn't agree with their methods. He returns to Gotham City to reek his own one man war against crime.

Director Christopher Nolan literally goes back to Batman's origin — not just give the dead franchise a kiss of life,but to actually spark it into a sort of triumphant homecoming. Gone is all forms of camp veneer so evident in Joel Schumacher's offerings, and in place we have a darkly rich picture intent on fleshing out Batman's motives, and crucially, his fractured persona.

One of the most pleasing things to me was that Nolan paced this picture to perfection. The build up of the character and then the birth of the Bat dominates the story for the first hour..

This gives Batman Begins some crucial heart. It really helps us to focus on this weird super-hero, now that we have some meat on his bones. We then follow Wayne from a Chinese prison to The League Of Shadows monastery, watching his transformation from brawling man of anger into a controlled fighting machine. A machine that still roams with a revenge-laden heart.

Then it's off to Gotham City where he then births Batman, and all bad guys are on his agenda.

Mob boss Falcone is the mysterious Scarecrow, and also a face from his past that rears its surprising head. Wayne is driven by powerful motives, and it's here in the second part of the film that Batman Begins rewards those who indulged in the character build up.

In come the stunts and outrageous sequences, all played out in Nolan's desperately dank Gotham City (a far cry from Tim Burton's dark Oz-like scapes). This Gotham is pot-boiling to disaster and crying out for the Bat to sweep it clean. Thankfully Nolan and his cast fulfill all the early promise to deliver a wonderful action fantasy that caters to all ages.

Christian Bale dons the Batsuit, and it fits like a glove. His Bruce Wayne may lack the ebullient charisma that Michael Keaton's had, but his Batman is mean and moody and comfortable with the zippy dialogue.

Michael Caine plays Alfred, the loyal servant to the Wayne family. Much heart and emotive drive from Caine ensures the role is a roaring success.

Cillian Murphy is Dr Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow — who actually scares more as Crane with his piercing eyes and devilishly smirky leer — whilst both Gary Oldman (Jim Gordon) & Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox) are solid with what little they actually have to do. Liam Neeson gets his teeth into a meaty role as Henri Ducard, and as a character arc he gets the best scenes (Nolan clearly having great fun here).

Minor let downs to me (without hurting the picture) are Katie Holmes (pretty, but hardly convincing as Assistant D.A. Rachael Dawes), and Rutger Hauer as Earle.

Still, as I said, they are very minor let downs because as comic book adaptations go, Batman Begins is from the top draw, a franchise re-suited, rebooted, and completely reinvigorated. But now the test comes with that all important sequel... 9/10
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The quality of mercy is not strnen.

[Bud Brewster]

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I struggled valiant to love the Batman movies because . . . well, everybody else in the world loved them, and I didn't want to be weird kid on the block.

Alas, I guess somebody's got to be the weird kid on the block, and just like when you're the last kid picked for a team to play kickball, you can't very well asks somebody else to be last for you. It just doesn't work that way . . .

My problem, I think, is that I have just as much trouble enjoying a movie that doesn't have a pretty fair amount of humor as I do enjoying a baked potato that isn't well dusted with enough salt and pepper to make it look like an aerial view of Mt. Saint Helen, post-eruption.

Let me put it this way: the 1998 version of Godzilla is one of my favorite movies.

The 2014 version of Godzilla was desperately in need of a cameo by the entire cast of Saturday Night Live.

I guess I'm just a wild and crazy guy, eh!


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pye-Rate]

What can I say, I'm batty.

www.hellogiggles.com/baby-bat-burritos

[orzel-w]

[Bud Brewster]

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Relax, Wayne, those were the kids that went on to start software companies and earn a billion dollars after taxes. When the jocks from school came to apply for jobs, these former rejects just glanced over the poor guys' resumes, shook their heads sadly, and let them have entry level positions out of pity.

Don't you remember the scene in which Reed Richards tells off the cocky general in Rise of the Silver Surfer? My favorite scene in the movie . . .



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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]