Batman Begins (2005)
The Cast
Christian Bale .... Bruce Wayne/Batman
Michael Caine .... Alfred
Liam Neeson .... Henri Ducard
Katie Holmes .... Rachel Dawes
Gary Oldman .... Jim Gordon
Cillian Murphy .... Dr. Jonathan Crane
Tom Wilkinson .... Carmine Falcone
Rutger Hauer .... Earle
Ken Watanabe .... Ra's Al Ghul
Morgan Freeman .... Lucius Fox
There's a point, somewhere around an hour & twenty minutes into the movie, that I sat back in my futon & hoped that Batman Begins was a three-plus hours long movie. I was enjoying it so much, that I hoped that it would never end, it would continue on to tell many more tales of Batman's long & storied history. Sadly, it's only Batman Begins, though I am happy to see that Christian Bale is signed on for the Untitled Batman Begins Sequel. Thankfully, that one is also written by David S. Goyer.
Goyer wrote the script for Batman Begins in seven weeks before he had to go direct Blade: Trinity, which I also enjoyed, so I'm starting to get impressed & very nearly giddy at Goyer's comic book pedigree. From my better-than-average knowledge of Batman's history, as a former comic book fanboy, it's almost astounding how close the Batman Begins story & characters seem to the actual comic book. The movie doesn't try to reinvent the character, choosing instead to recognize & honour the character by being as true to it's history & past as it possibly can be.
It's also heartening when a director as good as Christopher Nolan is, doesn't come into the project wanting to make it his own. Not too many directors do dark crime as good as Nolan, though if I could pick someone to direct the next one, it might very well be Mathieu Kassovitz, who directed the superb Crimson Rivers. Nolan doesn't go super-dark, like Tim Burton tried to do in Batman & Batman Returns (although that one did have Walken!). Nolan also doesn't go super-comic-book, like Joel Schumacher did in Batman Forever, or SUPER-GAY as Schumacher also did with Batman & Robin. Nolan found a comfortably dark medium, & surrounded himself with a stellar cast of actors.
Well, Katie Holmes can be good, it's just that her part didn't necessarily require her to be stellar. She's the kickass damsel in distress stereotypical strong female character, the most two-dimensional main character in the movie. Michael Caine brings more to the character of Alfred than that doddering Michael Gough ever did, though that was probably more the fault of the comparatively crappyness of that Bat Franchise. Freeman is great as the typical wiseass, old guy that gives sage advice character that he plays so well. Oldman is superb as a pre-Commisioner James Gordon, capturing that spot between giving up & staying true to one's self so damned well.
The villains are excellent as well, with Cillian Murphy leading the pack as the downright creepy Dr. Crane. Wilkinson does more than should be expected with his character, & sadly Watanabe doesn't last nearly as long as I'd like him to. Neeson is like a Sith version of Qui-Gon Jinn, menacing yet fatherly to Bruce Wayne, teaching him the ways of the Forc.. err.. Ninja & so on.
Speaking of Wayne, never has there been a greater performance of Bruce than by Christian Bale. That's a testament to his abilities as an actor & the high quality of the writing of Batman Begins, for recognizing many real-life things that the comic books tend to ignore / gloss over. Bale's Wayne is human, he gets injured & shows it. I'd also have to say that Bale's Batman perfectly captures the intensity of the character back in his earlier days. The learning on the job was considerably faster than it was in Mask of the Phantasm, but it still touched on many of the same areas.
Other than Holmes' performance, there is absolutely nothing bad about Batman Begins. It's quite simply the best Batman movie ever filmed by a major studio (I haven't seen Sandy Collora's Batman: Dead End yet, & probably never will) & in my humble opinion, probably the best comic book movie I've ever experienced. It transcends it's genre as a comic book movie, thanks to the writing, the acting & the character dissection of Bruce Wayne. I only hope that they don't screw up the Bat Franchise this time, & that the core creative & group remain together as long as possible. 5 outta 5.