Ralph's Movie Reviews: BATMAN BEGINS

Friday, June 17, 2005

BATMAN BEGINS

Action adventure

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Christian Bale: billionaire Bruce Wayne, aka Batman
Linus Roache: his father
Liam Neeson: Henri Ducard, Zen master and leader of the League of Shadows
Michael Caine: Alfred, the butler of Wayne Manor
Morgan Freeman: Lucius Fox, employee of Wayne Industries
Tom Wilkinson: Carmine Falcone, Gotham city's crime lord
Cillian Murphy: psychiatrist and proprietor of Arkham Asylum, aka The Scarecrow
Gary Oldman: Jim Gordon, one of the city's few good cops
Katie Holmes: Rachel Dawes, assistant DA and Bruce’s former childhood sweetheart

REVIEW
This movie is not a sequel to any of the ones we’ve seen before. It is a reinvention of Batman, just like the title says, starting from when he was a young boy. Unlike previous incarnations, it is not the “cartoony” type with stylised comic book characters. It is far more serious than that and deals with more weighty issues like morality and overcoming adversity and confronting your fears. In fact, the first half of the movie is devoted to these ideological concerns rather than the crime problems of Gotham city. I liked the old Batman better.

CLASSIFICATION

for intense action violence, disturbing images and some thematic elements.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
The echolocation signals emitted by bats are between 20 and 100 kilohertz.This is above the human range of hearing so we would not hear anything but the flutter of their wings when they are in flight.

During the sword fight on the glacier, a bracelet falls off one of the combatants on to the icy surface. There is a change in the camera’s point-of-view and the bracelet has disappeared although no one approached it.

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.