Looking Back: Batman Begins

In honor of the release of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises July 20, I'm looking back at the first two films in his trilogy, covering themes and ideas he's explored in his interpretation of Batman, and maybe, shed some light on what's to come in the final installment.


Note: This is not merely a review, but an in depth look at the film. If you have not seen it, do not read, as there is discussion about the ending. In other words: SPOILER ALERT.

If you're not a big fan of the darker, more mature tone comic book films have taken on in the past few years, the one movie you can blame for that is Batman Begins. Christopher Nolan, a relative unknown (save his terrific Memento) at the time, was hired to bring the DC character back to life, after the disaster that was Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin. Nolan and co-writer, David S. Goyer, set out to make a Batman film that was more about The Dark Knight rather than The Caped Crusader. They realized the best route to do this was to bring the character back to his roots, and tell his origin tale, which at this point, had never been fully explored on the big screen. We got most of the story in Tim Burton's Batman, but Bruce Wayne's complete origin story was never fully explored. The film boasts quite the cast, with Christian Bale in the title role, Michael Caine, Katie Holmes, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Tom Wilkinson, Ken Watanabe, and, Cillian Murphy.

Both of Nolan's Batman films deal with several different themes; some of them overlap between the two films. Here, he focuses his attention on the ideas of justice, fear, and parenting. The main theme (and one that is pretty obvious) is fear. Fear in the unknown, fear in being alone, and fear in the loss of loved ones. Bruce Wayne (Bale) didn't begin his journey to Batman on the basis of fear, but instead was motivated by the death of his parents and sought justice. However, his rage clouded his idea of justice as vengeance. He was motivated to kill Joe Chill, the man who murdered his parents. He thought that by killing Chill, he'd find the justice he was seeking. However, he soon realized this simple act alone wouldn't be what gave him the satisfaction, or feeling of justice, that he sought. Instead, he fled Gotham in order to understand the mind of a criminal. As he tells Ducard/Al Ghul (Neeson), he delved into their psyche, but he never became one of them. During his training in the League of Shadows he discovered that their idea of justice was with the murder of criminals. His views clashed with theirs, and he fled, returning to Gotham in the hopes of ridding the streets of men like Joe Chill. But he realized he wouldn't be able to do this simply as Bruce Wayne; he needed to become something more.

I found it interesting that, although Wayne ultimately ends up defecting from the League of Shadows, and leaves Al Ghul to die at the film's conclusion, Al Ghul is sort of his main inspiration for the symbol that is Batman. The movie opens with Al Ghul telling Wayne, "If you make yourself more than just a man...then you become something else entirely...a legend". You can see Wayne already beginning to formulate the idea in his head at that point, because even he realizes at this point that criminals will not be fearful or respect lawmen or one individual man.

Batman Begins also delves into Wayne's relationship with his parents, and how their death ultimately leads to his choice to become Batman. This is the part of Batman's lore that we have never seen play out fully on screen before. Christopher Nolan finds a way to make the early scenes work without bogging the film down. He's also able to make it a running idea through the movie that Wayne is constantly searching for the father figure that he lost at a young age. The obvious answer to this dilemma is his butler Alfred (Caine), but Alfred only makes up a fraction of what Wayne is looking for in a father figure. Alfred is his foundation; the person he can look to for guidance during his journey as Batman. Al Ghul is the man he looks to for motivation to stop the criminals of Gotham; Jim Gordon (Oldman) is the man he looks to as the symbol of change for the city, and Lucius Fox (Freeman) is the "cool" one, the one who gives him his toys and doesn't question what Wayne does with them. At least, not in Batman Begins.

Although Christian Bale is a terrific choice for Bruce Wayne, I think the highlight of the film is Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon. He plays Gordon with a sense of hope that things can turn around in Gotham, even though almost everyone around him in the GCPD is corrupt. His Gordon gravitates to Batman's ideals almost instantly, and their partnership, although not realized until the film's conclusion, is a really satisfying payoff, and arguably makes for the best moments in the follow up, The Dark Knight. Plus, Oldman just looks like Gordon, especially his Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns incarnations.

Both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are interesting takes on social commentary as well. Here, Christopher Nolan uses the notion of fear as a means of discussing society on a larger scale. The movie was released in 2005, and although it was four years after 9/11, the memories still lingered in everyone's minds. We, as a society, were still wary about doing normal, everyday activities because the threat of terrorism was so prevalent, with things like the Homeland Security Advisory System color code.

I think my favorite scene in the film is when Wayne discovers the "bat cave" underneath Wayne Manor. There's a lot going on in the scene, and not much all at the same time. When he finally gets to the bottom of the well that he fell down in the beginning of the movie, he sees the cavern that the caves came from. He's not sure if he wants to continue because he knows what is on the other side; he's afraid of confronting what he already knows is there. He does, however, move forward into the cave, and discovers a huge expanse of space. As he lands, the bats come from all around and swarm him. Instead of running, he embraces the bats, and it's in this moment that he becomes Batman. It's a powerful scene, and one of Christopher Nolan's finer directing moments in his career.

The main, and I should say only real, issue I have with the film is Katie Holmes' character. While the part was written exclusively with Holmes in mind for the role, she seems bored in her time on screen. There's also a real lack of chemistry between her and Bale, which weigh the film down in its final moments. I understand the need her character brings to the movie, but I wish they would have went with a different casting choice, as many of her scenes are the more disappointing moments in the film. These are two people who are supposed to be lifelong friends with feelings for each other that they haven't explored yet. Sadly, they come off as people who barely know one another. When it was reported Holmes wouldn't be returning for the sequel, needless to say I was quite relieved, and even more ecstatic with Maggie Gylenhaal's performance in The Dark Knight. But, that's for another post.

Batman Begins is really what the franchise needed at the time it was released.  It's a back-to-the-roots sort of film, going with Batman's early days and 1980's when he was The Dark Knight, rather than going the 1960's route of being the Caped Crusader. The movie is an excellent start for the series, and its sequel was able to build on the successes of its predecessor and create a film that was unlike any comic book movie we had seen before. Batman Begins changed the way comic book movies are made, and set the standard for origin tales, even if they're of characters we've known for sixty plus years.

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