Woochifer
07-11-2005, 02:18 PM
It's now Monday and my neck is still stiff from watching Batman Begins on the dome IMAX screen over the weekend! On the movie itself, first to mention is that the bar for the comic book movie adaptation has now been raised. This is about as good a rendering of the Batman mythology as I could have possibly hoped for. Instead of the sloppily unfocused campy tongue-in-cheek caped crusader adventures that plagued the last two Batman movies, Batman Begins fully realizes the character depicted in the seminal The Dark Knight Returns and Batman Year One graphic novels that Frank Miller wrote in the late-80s. This movie now distinctly moves Batman into a shadowy and frightening character, which is more in line with how the backstory was written into the graphic novels and subsequent comic series.
Unlike the other Batman movies, Batman Begins focuses on the development of the Batman character, rather than a rogues gallery of villians and sidekicks. After the first Batman, the other movies began to lose focus and branch off into any number of ill conceived directions. Batman Begins is a tightly written and directed movie that has a compelling narrative, a sense of purpose, and great all-around depiction of Gotham City. Christian Bale was more than up to the task of playing the Bruce Wayne/Batman character, and the supporting cast was strong (if anything Katie Holmes was the weak link). The only flaw to the movie was in the action set pieces, which were not quite as well done. The Batmobile chase was cool, but the fight scenes in general had way too much close up shaky camera work and ADD-induced editing. (Then again, I generally feel that very few American and British directors know how to properly film and choreograph fight scenes to begin with, so it's par for the course.)
Only the Tim Burton helmed 1989 movie comes close to this one for filmgoing enjoyment. That one had a less coherent storyline, but it had better set pieces, a focused villian, and more style and panache than Batman Begins.
As far as the IMAX experience goes, I went with a group of friends and the misfortune of sitting off to the side and towards the front of the auditorium. On a flat IMAX screen showing a movie originally framed for 35mm widescreen, this is not good. On a curved dome IMAX screen, this induces seasickness! The dome IMAX screen is exactly what it sounds like, rather than a flat screen, the screen is a dome shape and projected up high towards the ceiling. It creates a sensation of motion, but it also skews the geometry of the movie!
In general, I've had mixed experiences watching movies in IMAX. In some cases, the theater simply took a 35mm projector and projected it onto the IMAX screen. I did not like that approach because the image from a 35mm film strip looks grainy and dark when projected onto an IMAX screen. In other cases, like Attack of the Clones, the image was transferred onto a large format IMAX print and projected through the IMAX projector. But, that particular movie and Apollo 13 were blown up into the full 4:3 IMAX aspect ratio, which was like watching pan & scan on an 8-story screen.
With Batman Begins, they went with the original widescreen aspect ratio while using the large format IMAX print, so that was more like watching a letterboxed presentation, but the screen is so large and wide that it still goes into your peripheral vision. I was very impressed with the image clarity, so I might need to catch another showing after work this week to see how it looks on a flat screen.
Unlike the other Batman movies, Batman Begins focuses on the development of the Batman character, rather than a rogues gallery of villians and sidekicks. After the first Batman, the other movies began to lose focus and branch off into any number of ill conceived directions. Batman Begins is a tightly written and directed movie that has a compelling narrative, a sense of purpose, and great all-around depiction of Gotham City. Christian Bale was more than up to the task of playing the Bruce Wayne/Batman character, and the supporting cast was strong (if anything Katie Holmes was the weak link). The only flaw to the movie was in the action set pieces, which were not quite as well done. The Batmobile chase was cool, but the fight scenes in general had way too much close up shaky camera work and ADD-induced editing. (Then again, I generally feel that very few American and British directors know how to properly film and choreograph fight scenes to begin with, so it's par for the course.)
Only the Tim Burton helmed 1989 movie comes close to this one for filmgoing enjoyment. That one had a less coherent storyline, but it had better set pieces, a focused villian, and more style and panache than Batman Begins.
As far as the IMAX experience goes, I went with a group of friends and the misfortune of sitting off to the side and towards the front of the auditorium. On a flat IMAX screen showing a movie originally framed for 35mm widescreen, this is not good. On a curved dome IMAX screen, this induces seasickness! The dome IMAX screen is exactly what it sounds like, rather than a flat screen, the screen is a dome shape and projected up high towards the ceiling. It creates a sensation of motion, but it also skews the geometry of the movie!
In general, I've had mixed experiences watching movies in IMAX. In some cases, the theater simply took a 35mm projector and projected it onto the IMAX screen. I did not like that approach because the image from a 35mm film strip looks grainy and dark when projected onto an IMAX screen. In other cases, like Attack of the Clones, the image was transferred onto a large format IMAX print and projected through the IMAX projector. But, that particular movie and Apollo 13 were blown up into the full 4:3 IMAX aspect ratio, which was like watching pan & scan on an 8-story screen.
With Batman Begins, they went with the original widescreen aspect ratio while using the large format IMAX print, so that was more like watching a letterboxed presentation, but the screen is so large and wide that it still goes into your peripheral vision. I was very impressed with the image clarity, so I might need to catch another showing after work this week to see how it looks on a flat screen.