Batman Begins: The Resuscitation of a Franchise



Like those Bats are really going to believe he's one of the gang. 

Since I only began blogging this summer, I haven't gotten a chance to write about the excellent films that make up Chris Nolan's epic Dark Knight Trilogy, which concluded last year with Dark Knight Rises.  Except for Man of Steel, I can't think of another film I looked forward to with as much anticipation as Dark Knight Rises, even more so than Dark Knight because I was dying to see how in the hell they'd be able to follow up that masterpiece.  In the cinema world, lightning rarely strikes three consecutive times and as far as the comic book genre is concerned, sequels are usually never as great the first.  If the second manages to be a worthy follow-up, then the third has historically been the killer of the franchise.  Case in point: Superman III, Batman Forever, Spiderman III, just to name a few.  In the face of this, having three Batman films that maintain the same level of epic quality and internal consistency is an unprecedented feat indeed.  Even so, I'm not going to talk about all three Nolan films in this post.  Instead, I'm going back to the beginning with Batman Begins, the film that resurrected a dead franchise that had sunk to the deepest level of campy hell with the hilariously awful Batman and Robin. 
After that neon paint splattered and bat-nippled holocaust, Batman was in serious need of a complete makeover that would return him to his roots as a dark and determined creature of night.  Chris Nolan and screenwriter David Goyer were just the men needed to reimagine a grounded Batman in a believable world.  As far as Superheroes go, Batman is by far the most plausible and therefore demands plausibility in his motivations as well as how he goes about waging his crusade against injustice.  To do this, Nolan took us back to the beginning, showing us slices of Bruce's childhood and infusing his fated relationship to the Bat with a depth it never had before.  Nolan and Goyer pulled fundamental elements of Batman's origin right from the comics.  I love how we see that Bruce's connection to the winged creatures stems from his childhood fear, when he falls down a well and is attacked by a swarm of startled bats before being rescued by his father.  Later, this pathologic fear of bats becomes indelibly linked to his parent's murder when young Bruce gets scared at an opera featuring bat-like creatures and pleads with his father to leave, whereupon they exit into the dark alley and right into the gunman's path.  Bruce is haunted by feelings of guilt at having gotten scared and it's this guilt, along with his rage, that ultimately leads him on his path to becoming Batman. 
Flash-forward several years and Bruce is in a Bhutanese prison, which is where the film actually begins, as part of his seven year training in just about every form of combat.  Flashbacks help fill in crucial moments of his childhood, including his parent's murder, and much like Man of Steel, I find this non-linearity refreshing.  Begins takes the time to cover what no other Batman film ever touched upon; those crucial, in-between years when Bruce molded himself from a man into a legend.  Not only does Begins show us in detail the events that drove him down his legendary path, it also shows us precisely how he goes about doing it.  

Batman crouching like a boss in Batman Begins.

One of the many things I love about Bale's Batman is that he had the look and physicality of Batman from the comics and conveyed the idea of Batman as a stealthy, ninja-like warrior capable of disappearing in a flash.  We get to see his intensive training under the guidance of the League of Shadows and his mentor, Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) who turns out to be Ra's Al Ghul.  When Bruce finally returns to Gotham after having been declared dead by Alfred, he uses his resources to create a persona that he can unleash upon a corrupt city.  The film is like a step by step guide to Bruce becoming Batman. The inclusion of Lucius Fox, played of course by Morgan Freeman, helps to show specifically how Bruce utilized his company's resources, namely the Applied Sciences department, to aid his cause.  We see him acquire a (mostly) bulletproof survival suit which he paints black, a lightweight gliding fabric that becomes rigid when charged, and of course the tank-like Tumbler vehicle which luckily for Bruce, comes in black and becomes his Batmobile.  Nolan emphasized practicality and plausibility for the film and therefore all the tools Bruce utilizes are grounded in realistic concepts.  This serves to make the world of the film that much more believable and therefore more relevant.  When Bruce finally hits the streets as Batman and begins his one man war on crime, it's the Batman I always imagined seeing on screen.  Everything about the suit, especially in the first film, perfectly conveys the sleek but fierce animalistic quality of Batman, from the simple matte black color to the length of the ears and the expression on the cowl, which rather than masking his fierce determination, channels it into the frighteningly intimidating persona he unleashes with a vengeance on unsuspecting criminals.
Another great aspect of the film is that supporting characters such as Alfred and Jim Gordon, who were pretty useless in past films (especially Gordon, who was about as efficient as Barney Fife), actually help Batman in the film.  Michael Caine's Alfred not only lends support and advice to Bruce as he creates the Batman persona, he also saves his life towards the end of the film.  Gordon, played by that chameleon Gary Oldman, is actually a useful ally of Batman even though he's supposed to be arresting the Batman as a vigilante.  Gordon believes the Batman is genuinely trying to change things in a town full of corrupt cops on the take.  Just as in Frank Miller's groundbreaking Year One, much of Gotham's police force is dirty, creating the need for someone like Batman and a good cop like Gordon to step in.  Soon, Batman begins cleaning up the streets, putting notorious mob boss Carmine Falcone behind bars and crippling his drug operation in one fell swoop.  The choice to use lesser known villains such as Scarecrow and Ra's Al Ghul rather than using the Joker right away was a brilliant choice.  Going with Joker in the first would've warranted comparisons to the 1989 Batman and just as in that one, the Joker would've overshadowed Batman in a film about his origins.  Using these less mainstream Batman villains and doing them justice was smart because it kept the focus on Batman while still giving him worthy villains to fight.  Some might argue that Scarecrow could've been used more, but the film's ultimate villain is Ra's Al Ghul; Scarecrow's just a pawn and he's not a big enough threat on his own. The revelation of Bruce's mentor Ducard being Ra's Al Ghul and his plan to destroy Gotham by gassing the city with Scarecrow's fear toxin is a great twist.  Batman facing off against his teacher and friend adds depth and ups the stakes in what could've been a typical hero/villain face off.  Bruce doesn't share Ra's' conviction that one must do all that is necessary to defeat evil and corruption including killing and that's what makes Batman who he is.  His unwillingness to cross that line and stoop to that level is what elevates him from a vigilante seeking personal vengeance to an incorruptible symbol of justice. 
As Batman and Al Ghul duke it out in a train racing towards Wayne Tower, Gordon drives the Batmobile in an attempt to derail the train before it reaches the tower and Ra's is able to complete his plan.  Again, it's great that Gordon plays a crucial role in stopping Ra's and doesn't just sit on the sidelines.  In the end, Batman and his allies are able to stop the plan from coming to fruition and Ra's is killed in the process.  I'm sure Batman fans were initially upset that the film got rid of the Lazarus pit angle that gives Ra's Al Ghul eternal life, but in keeping with the realistic feel of the film, they kept him a mortal who's really skilled in combat.
Ultimately, Gordon ends up installing the famous Bat-signal atop Gotham's Major Crimes Unit building and Batman visits him on the roof.  The film's instantly classic ending scene is reminiscent of the ending of Year One, which Nolan and crew were heavily inspired by.  Gordon tells Batman that his appearance in Gotham will lead criminals to step up their game and retaliate in deadlier ways.  This threat of escalation is a realistic but often overlooked concept in the world of superheroes.  It's natural that if someone with the resources and abilities of Batman (or Superman) showed up, their enemies would have to upgrade their weapons and tactics.  It's not simply enough to rob a bank with a handgun anymore.  All this leads Gordon to mention a guy with a flair for the theatrical like Batman who leaves a calling card after committing armed robbery and double homicide.  He hands Batman an evidence bag which Batman turns over to reveal a Joker card.  I read that the filmmakers were initially hesitant to foreshadow the Joker at the end because they were unsure how the film would do, but ultimately they decided to go for it and I'm glad they did.  It gave fan-boys like m'self something to insanely babble on about for the next year or so.  Just this tease of Joker being in the sequel was enough to blow everyone away and as we all know, once we finally got a load of the new Joker updated for Nolan's gritty Batman world, comic book films would never be the same again.  Who would've known that Batman Begins would be the first of three films that would not only restore Batman to the big screen with a vengeance but would almost singlehandedly flip the superhero genre on it's head for all time.