That struggle gives the story its requisite heft, but what makes this "Batman" so enjoyable is how Mr. In an uncertain world, one the director models with an eye to our own, this is a hero caught between justice and vengeance, a desire for peace and the will to power. Nolan's is tormented by demons both physical and psychological. Miller's 1980's rethink of the character, which resurrected the Dark Knight side of his identity. Nolan has made a close study of the Batman legacy, but he owes a specific debt to Mr. Nolan approaches Batman with respect rather than reverence. Unlike Robert Rodriguez, whose faithfulness to Frank Miller's comic sucked the juice out of "Sin City," Mr. It's amazing what an excellent cast, a solid screenplay and a regard for the source material can do for a comic book movie. Intrigue ensues involving a crime lord played with brio by Tom Wilkinson, a headshrinker brought to skin-crawling life by Cillian Murphy and the last honest cop in Gotham, James Gordon, given expressive poignancy by a restrained Gary Oldman. Thereafter, he returns to Gotham City, where he assumes a dual identity as both the city's wealthiest citizen and its avenging angel. Lead by a warrior sensei, Ra's al Ghul (Ken Watanabe), and his aide, Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson, at his lethal best), the league invites Bruce into its fold, an offer he violently declines. The story opens with the adult Bruce in the middle of that journey, in the far reaches of Asia, where he first rubs shoulders with "the criminal fraternity," then a clandestine brotherhood called the League of Shadows. With narrative economy and tangible feeling, he stages that terrible, defining moment when young Master Wayne watched a criminal shoot his parents to death in a Gotham City alley, thereby setting into motion his long, strange journey into the self. Nolan more or less begins at the beginning, taking Batman back to his original trauma and the death of his parents. Which is why, working from his and David S. Without his suave alter ego, this weird bat man is a superhero without humanity, an avenger without a conscious, an id without a superego. Nolan gets, and gets better than any other previous director, is that without Bruce Wayne, Batman is just a rich wacko with illusions of grandeur and a terrific pair of support hose. Bale conveys effortlessly, is Bruce Wayne's air of casual entitlement, the aristocratic hauteur that is the necessary complement of Batman's obsessive megalomania. Keaton couldn't bring to the role, and what Mr.
Bale even improves on Michael Keaton, who donned Batman's cape both in Tim Burton's 1989 "Batman" and its funhouse sequel three years later, and gave the character a jolt of menace. His Batman is leagues away from Adam West's cartoony persona, which lumbered across American television screens in the mid- and late-60's with zap and pow, but never an ounce of real wow.
BRADLEY KNIGHT ARRANGER MOVIE
Bale, who cut his teeth working with Steven Spielberg on "Empire of the Sun" almost two decades ago, has been best known for his scarily plausible performance in "American Psycho," an intellectual horror movie that now seems like a prelude to this one: think American Psycho redux, this time in tights.Īs sleek as a panther, with cheekbones that look sharp enough to give even an ardent lover pause, Mr. Conceived in the shadow of American pop rather than in its bright light, this tense, effective iteration of Bob Kane's original comic book owes its power and pleasures to a director who takes his material seriously and to a star who shoulders that seriousness with ease. "Batman Begins" is the seventh live-action film to take on the comic-book legend and the first to usher it into the kingdom of movie myth. As it happens, the most memorable rescue mission in "Batman Begins" isn't engineered by the caped crusader, but by the film's director, Christopher Nolan. Watching this scene, it was hard not to think how nice it would have been if Batman had instead dispatched the infernally perky actress, whose recent off-screen antics have threatened to eclipse this unexpectedly good movie. Near the big-bang finish of "Batman Begins," the title avenger, played by the charismatic young British actor Christian Bale, scoops up a damsel in distress, played by Katie Holmes, and spirits her away to his lair.
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