Grr.
I just got reminded of something I need to get off of my chest.
Batman Begins
I watched this again quite recently, and I need to have a good rant about it otherwise I'm just going to slap something.
I got the DVD like a year ago, and prepared to watch it, all pumped up for the exciting, emotionally developed superhero action fantasy I'd been promised by legions of critics. What I got instead was mediocre, underdeveloped, and most of all - annoying. I decided to give it another chance recently in the hope that I'd been having a bad day the first time round, perhaps with inflated expectations, and that given an unbiased and open-minded view of it the second time around it would morph into a brilliant cinematic masterpiece. Contrary to the laws of thermodynamics, it hadn't.
For starters, I'm mentally comparing it with the two (exceptional) Tim Burton films. Both of these received a fair bit of criticism for being largely style-over-substance, but these criticisms overlook the fact that it is bloody good style, and what substance is present is of a similarly high quality. Both Tim Burton films work for me exceptionally well as dark superhero films - the style, acting and action are not only fantastic - they also all fit into the dark and Gothic, yet colourful, fantasy setting. I also have some admiration for the first Joel Schumacher film, which while lacking the style of Tim Burton's renditions still had a great, camp feel to it which you can see in the original series, and maintained some level of style.
The first thing I need to point out is how spectacularly the film failed to attain the levels of depth and emotional complexity we were promised. You only have to look at the main characters to see this - let's take them as a bullet pointed list:
o Nolan seems to be playing my least favourite stock character of all - the arrogant middle-class-plus kid who tries to do something brave for the sake of his own ego, then learns some valuable lessons along the way, nonetheless remaining as much of an annoying kid as he was before all supposed character development.
o Katie Holmes has without a doubt my second least favourite stock character, although her personal qualities propel her easily above Nolan in terms of annoyingness. She's the principled and apparently altruistic lawyer who doesn't let admiral moral principles stop her from being a smug bitch who doesn't know when to shut up or be subtle. This seems to be the general presentation of socialism in America, which is probably why everyone's so right-wing over there. It's amazing how a lack of modesty turns altruism into something which warrants a slap.
o Tom Wilkinson's mob boss is similarly lacking in dimensions. While a comparatively enjoyable character, he may as well have a great big arrow pointing to him with "Look! I'm a stereotypical, money-hungry mob boss with no redeeming characteristics whatsoever" pointing to him. When did giving villains psychological disorders, or some element of sympathy, stop being cool?
o Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine can all go in one category, since they're all great actors who seem totally out of place here. Neeson seems to have stepped into a time-warp and emerged in completely the wrong genre. Caine, while immense should never be an upper-class butler, ever (at best he's a gardener or farm-hand), and Freeman's only purpose seems to be to syphon attention away from other characters. This is what happens when you think of actors first and make characters to fit them.
None of these characters have any complexity which can't bee seen within five seconds of seeing them on-screen. It's amazing how a film can draw you in with great promises and completely fail to fulfil them.
o Cillian Murphy happens to actually play a decent character in the sinister psychologist and asylum owner. He's easily the best person in the film, and features a good three or four times more depth and style than the other characters, and is elegantly menacing. My only complaint about him is his abrupt and permanent exit from the film - just as he gets even more awesome with his appearance as the Scarecrow, he's on for fully eleven seconds before being tazed in the face and disappearing into the darkness. I sat through the rest of the film waiting for him to reappear, but no such luck.
Probably the worst example of blatantly one-dimensional characters comes with the Wayne family. Bruce's father is portrayed as a laughable ideal - I'm just left trying in vain to will him to show some kind of flaw - some human err to show that he is actually a person and not a soulless construct. At another point, Caine enlightens us as to the family's history - "Your great blah grandfather was part of the underground rail road - transporting freed slaves to the North". This kind of attempt to manufacture a family of perfection which would make Jesus blush may strike some reviewers as deep, psychological drama, but for me it just makes it impossible to engage with the film and it's characters. Common-sense dictates that no family with such levels of altruism would remain rich for long, and where the hell did they get their money in the first place? Extracting thorns from the feet or unicorns who gave them pots of gold out of gratitude?
The direction, script and structure of the film have their share of crippling flaws. Let's look at the script first - anything which can make Michael Caine feel lame is a definite lump of fail. Here's a sample of some amazing monologue:
Caine: To the unconcious body of what is clearly a ninja Caine has just knocked out in order to gain access to a burning building "I hope you're not a member of the fire brigade".
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Funny.
Were that not comedy gold enough, the film also has a view of satire which consists of having one character repeat a line said earlier in the film in a context which can be seen as ironic. And I use the word ironic in its most obnoxious and obvious sense. For example:
Board Dick: Firing Freeman "Didn't you get the memo?"
Some time later
Freeman: Firing Board Dick "Didn't you get the memo?"
You see the connection there? This happens probably seven times throughout the film, and this instance is the least annoying.
Let's move onto structure. It's something like half an hour into the film before Batman eventually shows. In any other situation this may be considered as (far excessive) suspense, but there are several action scenes in this time, all of which just leave you impatiently wondering when Batman's actually going to emerge.
I'm running short on characters here, so I'll be more compact. The direction isn't great - for plenty of scenes, the last fight in particular, Nolan lapses into that sub-standard action film technique of flicking between two or three action fights, as if expecting the audience to have ADD. That's just patronising.
The plot is unrealistic. A main part of it consists of a microwave emitter which can vapourise water at ranges of over a kilometer, whilst having no ill effects whatsoever on the 90% water humans standing next to it (imagine sticking a cat in a microwave). At one point, a crime lord is tied irresponsibly to a search light and left for some time. Remember that CSI where someone was fried on one of those? Basic laws of thermal radiation don't seem to apply in this universe. Of course, criticising fiction for being unrealistic is a bit pointless, but this is what happens when a film supremely annoys you. You find more faults everywhere.
The CGI world has no magic to it. There's no dark style - the city simply looks generic. Whilst Burton could be accused of covering substance with style, Nolan covers what little substance there is with annoying.
Few words left - wrapping up. Thanks for reading.