Batman Begins *SPOILERS*
POSTED BY: Misguided By Voices
UPDATED: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 08:49
VIEWED: 5021
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BB may have overtaken Spiderman as my favourite comic book adapation, and by quite a margin.
Stuff I didn't like:
- No action sequence worth writing home about. Meh. What are you gonna do?
- Lack of a "theme" - though there seemed to be the beginnings of a theme there, which if they were being realy clever would emerge next film.
- The editting. Though it made some of the fights more brutal (whilst removing the actual brutality to get a lower rating), you lost a lot as well.
Stuff I liked:
- Pretty much all the rest of it, but Bale's portrayal of Batman, Caine's Alfred, Rachel Dawes - as underwritten as Mary Jane, but still good, the Scarecrow, the sword fight on the ice, the Arkham Asylum Bat.
Stuff I loved:
- That shot of Batman on the roof.
"I threw up on your bed"
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I'm a huge fan of the 1989 Batman, but this one tops it in many ways.
My main complaint was the fight direction/editing. I like to be able to SEE what is happening in fights rather than a bunch of quick flashes and sounds.
And I agree about Bats on the roof, that was such a great shot.
I loved Ra's Al Ghul and the Scarecrow; great characterization on both of them. And you know Ra's somehow escaped from the train...
I liked Zasz's cameo.
I liked seeing Batman hang the detective from the rooftop.
The ONE thing I wished had been included was Batman jumping off the statue-of-liberty type building in town like he does after the "broken bat" storyline and, I believe, in Year One [though it's been a long time since I've read it].
"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government."
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I saw it last night, Very good. I liked it a lot. I love that the city looked like a city, I liked the original movie version of Gotham too, but this just made it more real. Loved Morgan Freeman.
Yeah Fight scene editing was crap. Pull back and let us watch a fight. a series of half second impact shots is not a fight scene.
Gary Oldman as a good character, What's the world coming to? Must have removed the bit in his contract that requires he be referred to as "a monster" in every film. (Dracula, Fifth Element, Airforce One, etc)
Hope they keep the cast and franchise going in this direction, Much as I loved
Select to view spoiler:
..Nichalson's Joker.
I'd love to see what they do with it here.
Visit WWW.Marillion.Com for a better way to live
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Yes, my favorite super hero movie. Easily (Although Batman Returns had a lot to say about the wound which hero and villain share and the personal cost of it all). I loved the sense of epic that we haven't seen since the original Superman. The movie had an almost biographical feel to it, like we were seeing a movie about an actual historical person like Napoleon or something.
As far as a "lack of a theme," are we talking about music here? Because, I found the movie's discussion of justice remarkably complex and even timely.
All other super hero movies are full of exciting set pieces strung together more or less awkwardly, but everything in this movie seemed to grow organically out of the situation. I found myself watching the villians for some time before registering, "Oh, that's the Scarecrow, etc." The diabolical plot which emerges is disturbingly realistic and grounded in the world and the characters.
Select to view spoiler:
I loved seeing Bruce Wayne in his "Travis Bickle" stage, waiting to assassinate Chill at the court house. Very important to see the real world depths of his darkness before we see how fate moves him to put on the bat suit.
A lot of people have complained about Miss Holmes' involvement, seeing her subplot as an unnecessary "love interest" type o' thing. But to me she was a crucial link to Bruce before his parents were killed. To me her life had gone where Bruce's might have, if his parents had lived out their lives to a natural end. Her final scene of "no, actually I'm not the love interest in this picture" was surprisingly adult and moving to me. Kinda like Inara in those moments when she realized that Mal's a dangerous crazy man and she really shouldn't have anything to do with the guy.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
As far as a "lack of a theme," are we talking about music here? Because, I found the movie's discussion of justice remarkably complex and even timely.
Yep - something like Elfman's theme - 'cept I'm kind of sick of it having had him score pretty much every hero movie going in recent years.
Quote:
Her final scene of "no, actually I'm not the love interest in this picture" was surprisingly adult and moving to me.
I'll take the blame for removing the spoiler - after all, the whole thread's labelled as such
Yeah - I saw it as a reversal of the Peter/MJ moment at the end of Spiderman, where Peter makes the decision that he can't tell MJ to protect her (followed by that great walk away/music crescendo), whereas here Rachel is the one making the sacrifice - allowing Bruce to be the Bat. The look on Bale's face at that point; half destroyed, half absolved, was fantastic.
"I threw up on your bed"
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Quote:
Originally posted by Misguided By Voices:
- Lack of a "theme" - though there seemed to be the beginnings of a theme there, which if they were being realy clever would emerge next film.
Definately agree with the lack of a theme. The score was loud and in all the right scenes, it just wasn't memorable.
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Yeah, I was disappointed with some of the action sequences, or lack thereof. But I loved the rest. The Ra's Al Ghul thing just makes so much sense when you think about it. I actually thought Katie Holmes did a decent job with what she had. But she didn't really bring anything extra to the role, while all the others did that in spades.
The casting was amazing. I can't pick a favorite. I usually can't see Morgan Freeman as anything but, well, Morgan Freeman. But in BB all I saw was Lucius Fox, if that makes any sense. All the actors completely transformed themselves into their characters. Oldman and Murphy really impressed me. The former because he was just so *normal* and the latter because he so totally wasn't.
One quick question: Did anyone catch a glimpse of Gordon's kid in the brief scene at his home? My dad said he thought it was a boy but Barbara Gordon is his only child.
EDIT: Just to add, this was definitely my favorite superhero/comic book movie. Bale's the perfect Batman and this movie was sooo much more true to the comics, in tone especially, than all the others. Burton only re-imagined his own Batman on the big screen that's just not the person I see in the comics. Nolan recreated everything that Batman is.
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Ok, I'm going to have to jump in and stick up for the action scenes. I actually liked the way they shot the confrontation with Falcone's men. Shooting it from Batman's POV/the quick cuts gave it that sense of chaos - what the hell is happening here? In essence it was the same as those shots of Bruce as a child being surrounded by hundreds of bats.
As for how the Bat Signal came to be - will never be able to look at that the same way again. Genius! (and OK, I know Falcone was still alive but did anyone else get a flashback to Silence of the Lambs?).
Didn't get a proper look at Gordon's children but just checked IMDB and there is a credit for Barbara Gordon.
Just a thought - if Joel Schumacher had been in charge, what would you bet that the little boy Batman & Rachel came across was called Dick Grayson...!
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