Jeremy’s Tophunder №67: Batman Begins
This is one of those uncommon instances where not only (a) the sequel is better than the first movie in the series, but more than that, (b) the sequel actually makes the original seem worse than it is.
Batman Begins is a very, very good movie. It’s (by far) the best origin story of Bruce Wayne and Batman that’s ever been put on film. It puts a spin on the Batman story and universe that had never been applied to a live-action Batman. Instead of making a campy, cartoonish live-action movie (like Tim Burton kind of did and Joel Schumacher -very much- did), they went dark, brooding, gritty, and realistic. “A dark, gritty re-boot” has become a cliche at this point, but it very much was not in 2005. Batman Begins in large part set that trend, rather than following it.
Generally, when there is a series of movies all taking place in one fictional universe, I often like the first movie in the series the best. I really enjoy the process of world-building. I enjoy being introduced to characters for the first time, as opposed to jumping into a story already knowing everyone. Not to spoil too much of the list yet to come, but it’s one of the reasons why A New Hope is my favorite Star Wars movie, and why Fellowship of the Ring is my favorite Lord of the Rings movie. In 2005, when I first saw Batman Begins, I knew it was not only the best superhero movie I had ever seen, but if this list had existed then, it almost certainly would have cracked the Top 10.
But then The Dark Knight came.
I’m not going to go too heavy on the comparisons between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight (because The Dark Knight will get plenty of discussion in this space at some point down the road), but suffice it to say, once I saw The Dark Knight, I came to look at Batman Begins as just a two-hour prologue to its sequel. Is that fair? Probably not. Like I said, Batman Begins is a wonderful movie in and of itself. But once I saw what Christopher Nolan was able to do with the universe and the characters in The Dark Knight, I started to wonder why he wouldn’t just open with it. It almost seems like a missed opportunity at this point.
Part of it comes down to the villains. I’m not sure if it’s just because Batman is my favorite superhero, but it always seemed (and continues to seem) like Batman has the deepest roster of villains. But having seen all three movies in the series, I keep going back and forth on whether or not I like the order in which the villains were presented. For my money, Ra’s Al-Ghul and Scarecrow are lower-tier Batman villains. Obviously, Joker and Two-Face are the cream of the crop. And I understand that The Riddler and Mr. Freeze are tough to pull off without seeming cartoonish (a problem for this darker interpretation of the universe), but I was still surprised (or maybe just disappointed) to not see The Penguin (probably as some kind of arms dealer) or Harley Quinn or more realistic take on Clayface.
Do I want to go back in time and put The Joker in Batman Begins? On one hand, no, because he was perfect in The Dark Knight. On the other hand, knowing what we know now about what happened to Heath Ledger, I might want to have another movie with him playing that role.
The long and the short of it is, having seen The Dark Knight changes how I think about Batman Begins. That being said, let’s talk about Batman Begins as if The Dark Knight didn’t exist.
First and foremost, Christopher Nolan is fantastic at creating a world and then letting his characters populate it. There really aren’t any specific characters or individual performances that stand out from Nolan’s movies (other than Ledger’s Joker, but that’s a singular performance that serves as the exception to the rule). In most of his movies, the universe drives the story, rather than the characters. That’s (mostly) true here. Other than Batman himself, there aren’t any individual characters that matter more than the role that they fill within the universe. “Batman’s Supplier and Part-Time Consigliere” ultimately matters way more than “Lucius Fox,” just the same way that “Bruce Wayne’s Childhood Friend” matters way more than “Rachel Dawes,” and et cetera and et cetera. That’s a hallmark of Nolan’s movies, very similar to Alfred Hitchcock. For the most part, that’s exactly what you want from a superhero movie, and it’s exactly what you get here.
The casting and performance of all of the secondary characters is just about perfect — they don’t get in the way. Is Liam Neeson a bit heavy-handed? Sure. But he’s playing a super villain. That’s what he’s supposed to do. Michael Caine is perfect as Alfred (and makes a surprisingly strong case for the best actor across all three films in the series), as is Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon. Cillian Murphy and Tom Wilkinson are both good, and even Katie Holmes seems to fit right in. Granted, it’s not like this is a movie that could get submarined by a bad actor (unless it was Bruce Wayne), but again, that’s a testament to Christopher Nolan and the world he’s able to build. It’s even more to his credit that he nailed most of his casting choices and got good performances out of them.
The music, composed by Hans Zimmer (a frequent Nolan collaborator) and James Newton Howard is wonderful. It’s a different take on Batman’s thematic score, a very noticeable departure from Danny Elfman’s scores for the two Tim Burton Batman films (1989 and 1992), and it fits into Nolan’s world perfectly.
The story and the overarching conflict also work really nicely. He’s a young, fledgling Batman, so it’s not like the bad guys are trying to track him down and kill him. They have bigger, more sinister motivations. It’s a great way to put Batman on the radar in this universe. Being a vigilante that marginally disrupts organized crime in one of the seediest, most crime-ridden cities in America is nice and all, but it doesn’t really capture the imagination of the public. But when suddenly there’s a plot to sack the city like Constantinople, then there’s an opportunity for Batman to make a name for himself. It raises everything to the 5th degree right away.
The League of Shadows was a nice touch that none of the older Batman movies really look into. The origin story in other Batman movies is just basically “yeah, he’s this super rich guy, his parents were murdered when he was a kid, oh and by the way he’s somehow incredible at hand-to-hand combat, but we’re not really sure why, just roll with it.” To my knowledge, there’s never been a storyline (movies, comics, or otherwise) where Bruce Wayne receives training from the League of Shadows, and that’s where his martial arts background comes from. It allowed the movie to come full circle in a satisfying way.
Batman Begins isn’t the best Batman movie, and it isn’t my favorite Batman movie, but it’s still very strong. In some parallel universe, where they shoehorn the origin story from Batman Begins in with the villains and conflict from The Dark Knight, the resulting movie might be №1 on my list. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way, and Batman Begins has to settle for №67.
(For a refresher on the project, I introduced it in a Facebook Post on Day 1)
Here’s our progress on the list so far:
6. The Fugitive
17. Ocean’s 11
24. Apollo 13
47. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
67. Batman Begins
76. Finding Nemo
85. Seabiscuit
93. The Truman Show
