*** Official BATMAN BEGINS Discussion Thread - Page 9

I thought this movie was near perfect, and even some of the criticisms, ie fight scenes, were a big part of why I liked the movie.

My take on the fight scenes is Batman is supposed to be mysterious. In his one on one fights with Ducard you get a better idea of what is going on.

And even if you didnt like the fight scenes, I think its unfair to say Nolan cant shoot action. The batmobile chase I thought was one of the best recent car chases I have seen.

It disheartens me to see the movie isnt doing as well as expected. I am also a little surprised. The theater I went too Tuesday night sold out 3 screens playing the midnight showing. I guess all the fanboys went to see it at midnight, and the general public isnt in the same rush.

I hope the word of mouth pulls it up in future weeks. WB needs to be rewarded for doing a comic book adaptation exactly the right way, so that they keep the exact same creative team in place for the sequel and dont start meddling.

Great idea! And of course he could pull it off! He made us believe in Yoda, didn't he?

Anything for Rutger!

Went to the 7 oclock showing and much to my surprise, the theatre was only half full. But for those that were there, they loved it as did I! So hopefully the low turnout was just an isolated incident or at least this film should get some great word of mouth.

Went in spoiler free and was never a big batman fan anyway. I enjoyed Burton's but don't really have any interest in seeing them again. One thing that always bothered me about Batman in general was that he's a normal guy that can do extrodinary things with little to no explanation. That all changed with BB.

For the first time Gotham was a real city. I loved how the city 'aged' through the course of movie. It didn't have any distinct "oh that building is in NYC" moments nor did it have any "check out the miniture" shots. That aspect really grounded the movie for me.

Then you have all of the gadgets, the tumbler, the suit, and everything else that makes Batman function in that superhuman way with some great groundings in reality.

The cast was great all around and I'll never think of Batman again as anything other than the one protrayed in BB. This has just become yet another great comic franchise that I can't wait to see more of.

I think the biggest applause came when Alfred smacked a thug with his golf club.

Well, I don't buy the "mysterious" bit as a reason for not getting better shots of the fighting. Let's face it, a good portion of the film centers on Bruce's training. Let's at least see how the training paid off. I keep flashing back to a scene in The Matrix well into the movie where Neo is starting to believe that he is "the one". He is in a fight (I think with Hugo Weaving) where he just lets himself go. His one arm is moving at like, the speed of light (done effectively in slo-mo) and the rest of his body has become totally relaxed with a zen-like confidence. You totally bought it because the movie has been building up to this point of "belief". This is what I was looking for in BB and I felt short-changed and let down. I personally think the theory of the chaos and fear of bats that Bruce felt as a kid, transferred later to Batman's enemies is a bit far fetched, unless Nolan wanted the audience to feel that fear, in which case it didn't work.

As far as the lack of box office goes, perhaps it's because
it's for older kids on up. This is not a movie that I'd take my 6 or 10 year old boy to whereas Spider-Man 1 & 2 was. It's kind of a crimefighter movie for grown-ups. In fact, due to the darkness in the trailers, my sons had no interest in going to see this.

My point of the fights is that Nolan did not fail. Fail implies he did not do what he set out too achieve.

Now its possible he made a bad choice that the audience does not like.

I think what he was trying to convey with the fights make it necessary that you cannot clearly tell what is happening.

Batman is "mysterious" to the enemies he fights. He comes out of nowhere. You never see him comming. The fight is over before his enemies know it has begun. The whole point of him setting up the persona is that criminals fear him.

Part of the realism Nolan seems to be going for is that Batman cannot fight and incapacitate every criminal he encounters.

He needs to create a legend among the criminal underbelly so that they all live in fear of him, even though in actuallity as one man he could ever only put a dent in crime in a large city such as Gotham.

Again, I think the fights clearly illustrate this point. I think he no doubt achieved that.

Everyone is free to disagree, but I feel most just wanted something different then what Nolan was going for. I think they wanted to see Batman the superhuman martial artist.

If they showed Batman fighting clearly and also in realistic way, it just wouldnt look impressive. Not unless he was faster and stronger then could be humanly possible.

I see your point. His advantage seems to be that he appears out of nowhere and takes these guys by surprise. By the time they try to figure out what's going on it's too late. I do have to see this film again on a bigger screen. I still think the Bourne Supremacy fight scenes sucked though

See I also really loved the fight scenes in Bourne Supremacy. Though I do agree there was a little too much "shaky cam" going on.

I dont think Batman had the shaky cam problem.

Also my point with the fight scenes going as Nolan intended is shown by how the chase sequences where shot. I could be wrong but I dont think most people had trouble following those scenes, and I also felt they had a very visceral feeling thats as good as any current action movie out there.

Wayne has much better hand-to-hand combat skills than just about all of the human crooks he fights. In the movie, only Ra's was really on Wayne's level in hand-to-hand combat. al-Ghul's followers only had a chance when attacking in numbers, and any of them was worth 5 unarmed Gotham thugs.

But just because Wayne could wade into a group of 4-6 armed thugs, doesn't mean it is to his advantage to do so all of the time. Wading into a group of thugs increases the risk of Wayne being hurt or killed. And then there is the fear / legend / myth factor.

If you were a criminal, which would you fear more? A bodybuilder standing at the street corner in plain clothes, waiting to beat you up? Or a Batman who might at any time appear out of nowhere, pull you up to the top of a 10-story building, by your feet, then drop you to the pavement (soft landing optional)?

From the review thread:


Not as good as you have heard.

But Batman Begins is still good, just not great.

I loved the character developments in the film. They were
all handled realistically and believably.

Christian Bale was excellent as Batman/Bruce Wayne. As were all the other supporting actors, especially Michael Caine and Gary Oldman. Everyone shone in their parts, big and small.

Where the film suffers in my opinion is in the action scenes. I felt as though I were watching two different films.

One was a great character driven drama with great performances and the other was a generic action film with little originality or excitement.

I thought the action scenes were handled very disappointingly with too hectic an editing pace and confusingly filmed. Sometimes it was so dimly shot, I couldn't tell who was fighting who.

The film also suffers from a lack of a real villain. These type of films need a strong villain and BB doesn't have one.

Still I liked the film as the good outweighs the bad. I was just hoping for more from all the awesome talent involved.




And to expand a bit further, my favorite scenes are all the quiet ones. For instance, when young Bruce Wayne tearfully confesses to Alfred that it was his fault that his parents were murdered brought a tear to my eye. The first half of the film is wonderful.

Michael Caine was awesome as Alfred. I just wish he had a bigger part. Same goes for GAry Oldman.

Like I said, what hurt the film for me were the generic action scenes. I was hoping that since this was a **new** Batman, that perhaps the action scenes would be as new and refreshing as the charater driven scenes were. Unfortunately, they weren't. Did we really need another action scene involving Batman and love interest fleeing the Police in the Batmobile? Been there, done that.

Still, I will be looking forward to a sequel from Nolan and co....if it gets made that is. This one seems to be headed towards being labeled as a boxoffice disappointment. I hope WB doesn't give up on the franchise yet.

Actually, the scene with Bats racing the clock with Rachel in tow was indicative of where Bats was in the beginning, still emotional, still yelling, desperately doing what he thought was necessary to keep a childhood friend alive. Later, Bats would not have been as emotional (would have played it more like the Keaton Bats, riding with Vickie to the Batcave, all mysterious-like, flashing the light into her eyes to keep her gaze off her of him).

I liked this movie overall, Bale was outstanding and so were most of the supporting cast, certainly Caine and Oldman. The revelation of the true villain's plot was very powerful as well, and the hallucinogenic gas was creepy and effective, with people's worst fears jumping to life right in front of them.

But I agree with those criticizing the fight scenes, I never had a clue what was going on and felt taken out of the movie. I even felt taken out by that in the scene where Bruce's parents get shot, which was needlessly confusing. I did think the chase sequences were OK. But I also thought Katie Holmes was simply dreadful, totally one-note and completely unconvincing. The contrast between her in this movie and Kirsten Dunst's wonderful performances in the Spidey flicks, particularly the second one, is awfully stark.

Paul_Scott:

that guy is the ONE for Joker! I bet you they will pick him.


ALSO, you guys have it all wrong on the combat. We did NOT see Batman's combat training in that movie. We merely saw the honing of it.

Bruce knew all the fighting styles BEFORE he ever came to Ducard. Ducard says it, "tiger stance, panther, do you think this is a dance?"

What Ducard does is HONE his fighting style into something more fearsome, brutal, and effective at incapacitation.

I would love to see a flashback in the next one of Bruce training with Lady Shiva before he ever met Ra's.

And the camera angles were EXCESSIVE. You could tell there was great choreography going on, and the angles did allow me to "FEEL" the blows somewhat, but we still don't see just how good Bruce is.

"The film also suffers from a lack of a real villain. These type of films need a strong villain and BB doesn't have one."

I disagree, as I think Scarecrow was the most affective villian weve seen in a Batman film.

Hes dangerous and scary,and for once in a Batman movie,a villian with real sense of being threatening.

Just IMHO of course.

Caught the film on Friday in a pretty full theater, so I know it got good business there. Right now, I do think it is probably the best Batman film of the bunch.

About the fight scenes. People want to compare them to The Bourne Supremecy, but I disagree. First off, while there was a lot of shaky cam in TBS, the fight was still intended to be followed. If you were able to pay attention, you could see what was going on. I don't think the fights in BB were ever intended to be followed. They were using obsucation to cover for the fact a real, choreorgraphed fight scene wasn't happening. Nothing particularly wrong with that in itself, since it seemed the point of the director to go that direction, to make him seem more dangerous because you aren't showing things. I really like the scene at the docks with the camera swirling around the thugs, with Batman in the middle a blur of action. That was great. I would have liked if everything wasn't like that, but what was there was good enough.

Jason

I enjoyed a "Batman" movie that focused on Batman.
More precisely, I enjoyed witnessing the transformation from Bruce Wayne, scared kid, to Batman (as indicated by the title of the film).

Me too. I just wish more of the film focused on those aspects rather than resorting to the standard superhero/comic book action antics, which would have benefited from a stronger villain(s).

quote:
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Everyone keeps buzzing about how the new Batman is so damn realistic. Everything is grounded in reality. It could all happen. My problem is, are you kidding me? Yeah, the vaporization of the water of the hallucinogenic virus. Oh yeah, that's happened to me dozens of times.
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Not to nit-pick a great movie, but this actually could not work. The vaporizer would vaporize all the water in everyone's bodies, killing them before they ever got a chance to breathe in the hallucinagin. All in all, it seems like a pretty goofy way to destroy a city. Why not just use traditional WMDs? Or, if you're determined to use a hallucinagin, why not just fly a plane over and disperse it in the air? Why does it only work if you inhale it? For a movie that goes to such lengths to explain things like bat ears, why leave such a gaping hole in the most important technical plot point of the climax?

The fight scenes bugged me from a purely visual perspective, but they made sense narratively ("this is not a dance"), so I accept them. However, I think that the point could have been made while retaining the stated idea: have Batman appear out of nowhere, deliver some amazing, skillful blows/kicks, and then disappear again in a disorienting manner. It's almost as if the theme of ninja stealth was introduced to hide Bale's lack of fighting skills, and it just conveniently went along with the idea of a scary Batman. Still, I do like the idea.

In terms of character (at least Batman's), this movie worked. I bought the motivation for him becoming Batman, and I liked the line he walked between anger and guilt, revenge and justice. (I do wish someone had consulted a thesaurus for the numerous use of the word, "fear.") I love how he is both dark and hopeful, ruthless and compassionate. This complexity makes him more real than any explanation of bat ears or hang glider capes could ever achieve.

However, I wish that the same amount of integrity had gone into the motivations for the bad guys. The plot to destroy Gotham was embarrassingly silly. You're going to go from economic warefare (which is an interesting, sophisticated concept for a bad guy) to dispersing a hallucinagin via a microwave transmitter vaporizing the water supply, which is then transported via PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION (what the bad guys are too cheap to get themselves a helicopter?) to Wayne tower, which just happens to also be the local water utility, all so that the citizens will kill each other becuase they're . . . scared of each other? Huh? And all with a method that wouldn't work anyway (see above)? This silliness undercut the seriousness of the first half. This plan belonged to the silly villians of the previous movies, not a character played by Liam Neesan.

What does Liam Neeson have to do with the character he plays?

And, as grounded in a realistic nature that alot of things in this movie are, this is still a 'comic book' movie. Destroying cities with strange devices and diabolically over the top world domination/destruction plots are typical and to be expected. I think it was that way because Nolan didn't want things 'too' real to where we dismiss costumed villains running around in future movies.

Another thing I really liked was the introduction of the cloth that takes on a rigid shape when an electric current is passed through it. The ability to use this to make the cape turn into an effective glider is an excellent addition to Batman's paraphenelia.

Not seen Equilibrium, eh? Bale could do whatever was required of him physically. I imagine the limitation was the suit, not the actor. If they can train Matt Damon, Bale should be a cinch.

As for the technical plot...it made sense within the context of the film. Again the realism comes from the plausibility. Taken at that level, as an engineer, I could eat up 98% of Hollywood, and not get the other 2% because of lack of knowledge. Batman was a damn sight closer than Sum of All Fears.

The fear toxin was important, because it linked in the thematic element of FEAR, which is what the entire movie is about.

Take care,
Chuck

And the use of the train was also symbolic. The train represented what Thomas Wayne had done to give back to Gotham. Using it to destroy Gotham was a perversion of that. Makes no sense from a plan point, but certainly symbolic and key to the thematic point of the film (and becoming Batman).

YMMV,
Chuck

71.1 million for the first five days. Not too shabby.

I'll just say I really liked this, and most of my sentiments have already been stated (e.g. too much "Bourne Supremacy" type editing/shooting of the fight scenes).

One point: the engineer monitoring the build-up of pressure in the water mains is worried about the mains blowing up, then right at the end when he watches the train being derailed, he seems to heave a huge sigh of relief, but he shouldn't know that the cause of the pressure build-up is a device on the train, should he? Or was he actually watching the gauges the whole time, not the train, and the editing just gave me the wrong impression?

He was watching the guages and the pipe maps. So he could trace the pressure build up and water pipes exploding as they approached the Wayne building. Then when the train derailed, the pressure build up stopped.

Was the engineer at the end also in Superman 2?

The voice and face seemed familiar and like one of the Nasa guys In superman 2. Im just not sure.

Shane Rimmer:

Superman II (1980) .... [NASA] Controller
Batman Begins (2005) .... Older Gotham Water Board Technician

Batman Begins is the best Superhero film ever made next to Superman. It's literary accuracy is only matched by it's superb execution, acting and sets. I learned many 'new' aspects of the Batman mythos I didn't know about and the film provides very credible explanations for things that have never been explained over the years. I cannot find enough superlatives to begin to describe how great (Magnificent) this movie is.

- Batman's origins are portrayed superbly by Christian Bale. Was there ever anyone else who should have played Batman other than this fine actor? I think not . The set pieces are incredibly realistic, the technology employed by Batman was explained elegantly and is based (Surprisingly) on current Science. This lends an extremely realistic flavour to this 'fantasy' genre that many Superhero movies fail to provide.

- The acting is uniformly excellent and is of the highest standard even if graded besides movies in other genres. The Scarecrow was just brilliant and quite menacing, Michael Caine was the perfect Alfred, Morgan Freeman (A joy to watch) and other actors played their parts to perfection (Yes even Katie Holmes). Nobody overacted and no one actor stole the show. If Liam Neeson acted even 1/4 of how he performs in this film he would have saved Star Wars Episode 1 single-handedly.

- The action is breathtaking but always supports/strengthens the story and is not gratuitous by any means (Spiderman/Spiderman 2 anyone? - total rubbish by comparison). The special effects were not overt and blended naturally right the way through.

- The music is by far the most memorable score of any Superhero movie to date (Except for the aforementioned Superman).

- The technology employed in Batman Begins is one of the highlights. By it's very title it implies that Batman is just starting out thus everything he uses has a raw edge to it and a realism often lost in other Superhero movie attempts. Initially I thought the Batmobile was terrible from the pictures I saw on the Net BUT in the context of the movie I cannot see how they could have used anything else. Even Batman had to start somewhere.The movie explains the origins of everything we have come to know about this character from subsequent attempts (Mostly poor except for Tim Burtons effort which by comparison to this can only be described as 'passable').

Do yourself a big favour and see one of the best Superhero movies yet made

I think another great aspect of the batmobile was the sound design on it. It just sounded like a monster. I liked Harry Knowles description of it in his review on AICN: The batmobile would give even Michael Bay a hardon.