Lexmark3200
10-31-2005, 11:02 AM
Is it just me or does Christian Bale look a lot like Eric Bana?
Anyway, FINALLY got around to renting this over the weekend, and this is going to be a kind of surface/odd-styled review because I had way too many distractions in order to watch this from beginning to end properly so I'll eventually rewatch it (either before or after Episode III: Revenge of the Sith when I buy that tomorrow) without stopping.
My first impressions were very positive -- from the (finally) DC Comics moniker following the Warner Brothers opening logo (which Burton missed in his vision instead during the opening credits claiming "Based on Characters Appearing in the DC Comics...") to Bale's training in the Himalayans by Liam Neeson. Some things that got confusing to me came as the film developed, and perhaps some folks can clear it up for me....why exactly did Neeson's character "turn" on Bale once he's the Caped Crusader and back in Gotham? Was it because Bale burned down the camp where he was training and "left Neeson for dead" (which he really didn’t)? Was it because Neeson felt Gotham needed to be "punished" for their sins? Did this go according to the comics originally?
What was up with the "Scarecrow" character, who was Arkum, the guy who runs the Gotham mental facility? Why did he flip and use those gases and put on that horrible mask? I thought this was mildly undeveloped.
Now, the whole thing about how Wayne returns to Gotham, meets Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) and begins building the Batcave, the Batmobile, making his weapons, and everything else, I just don’t know....some of it was cool, as we get a chance to see Bruce tunneling out the holes for the Batcave, but what was up with that Batmobile anyway? It was a prototype dune buggy of some kind that Fox (Freeman) had come up with, but Wayne modifies it as the "first" Batmobile----but it just looked so damn awkward compared to what we got in Tim Burton's version. But this may be going exactly to comic strategy, so I don’t know. And I have to be honest, folks....I know just about everyone in the world disagrees, and that’s okay, but I just didn’t know what to make of Bale under the cape and mask -- there was a small part of me that actually thought Keaton did a better job, especially in the first Burton picture. I thought the suit looked silly in Begins as opposed to Burton's Batman and the Caped Crusader's antics just seemed "off" compared to the way Keaton handled himself in Burton's version. It was almost as if I wish they could have taken Nolan's prequel story about how he is trained by Neeson and then returns to Gotham, and then stapled on Burton's version with Keaton to make the perfect Bat film. In all fairness, this is what Burton's film SHOULD have been, with depicting how the Caped One trained with Samurais and then returned to Gotham as Batman to seek revenge after his parents are murdered; instead, in Burton's version, the action starts off with a bang, with Keaton already being the Caped One and taking out thugs right from the beginning -- kind of what Mark Steven Johnson went for in Daredevil but what Sam Raimi did so right in his first Spider-Man film, where he showed the developing powers of Peter Parker without the need for a prequel story.
And yes, I thought it was very clever how this newly-minted and helmed franchise is going to re-introduce the next villain, when Bale gets the bag with the Joker card inside it.....I just KNOW whoever plays this guy next (rumor has it it's going to be Johnny Depp) won't come close to Nicholson in Burton's film. And that's what makes this franchise just seem so.....odd right now....and the same thing is going to happen when Superman Returns hits the screens. We have an already-established franchise by Warner Brothers with Tim Burton directing the first two Bat films and Joel Schumacher doing the last two (which completely took us out of the whole Batman mystery with a neon-infused Gotham complete with downright horrendous and off character performances by George Clooney, Val Kilmer, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Alicia Silverstone) and now Christopher Nolan comes along and creates an all-new beginning to the franchise and it just seems "odd" in conjunction with the other original franchise collection.....
But that's not really relevant in that I thought this was clever attempt to re-tell the story as a whole, this time making better explanation of Bruce Wayne's training before becoming the Dark Knight --- and while I still have a soft spot for Michael Keaton in the first role (especially behind the mask) there is no doubt Bale was much better than Kilmer or Clooney in the role. I think all comic-turned-film stories should go this route, that is, having an explanation story attached to them as how they become these heroes; I don’t necessarily believe that they should be done with prequel re-inventions of the franchise, as in this case, but I think Sam Raimi did it best in the less-than-two-hours running time of the first Spidey picture.
Like I said, I need to sit down and re-watch this from beginning to end without interruption to get a feel for the film again and consider whether or not this would be something worth purchasing, because, to be honest friends, at this point, I just don’t know, if you can believe that.
Warner delivered a gorgeous widescreen transfer here for Batman Begins, one that I could detect no real problems with. I believe there's a full screen version available separately as well. The video was impressive, that I remember, but I'll go back to reconfirm.
Audio, surprisingly, only came in a Dolby Digital 5.1 variant (being that the original franchise films were just repackaged with DTS mixes included) but this track was really no slouch -- once you applied the correct amplification to it. A bit soft in dialogue sequences, the track really heated up during action breaks with a ton of panning around the soundstage and, from what I can recall, a WALLOP of LFE which was a very nice touch. In sum, though, the track suffered from what I like to call the "Dolby Digital Decibel Level Syndrome," where you can simply tell a "blanket" could have been lifted off this track so it could breathe a bit better and deliver a bit more punch than it did at lower volume levels.
Anyway, FINALLY got around to renting this over the weekend, and this is going to be a kind of surface/odd-styled review because I had way too many distractions in order to watch this from beginning to end properly so I'll eventually rewatch it (either before or after Episode III: Revenge of the Sith when I buy that tomorrow) without stopping.
My first impressions were very positive -- from the (finally) DC Comics moniker following the Warner Brothers opening logo (which Burton missed in his vision instead during the opening credits claiming "Based on Characters Appearing in the DC Comics...") to Bale's training in the Himalayans by Liam Neeson. Some things that got confusing to me came as the film developed, and perhaps some folks can clear it up for me....why exactly did Neeson's character "turn" on Bale once he's the Caped Crusader and back in Gotham? Was it because Bale burned down the camp where he was training and "left Neeson for dead" (which he really didn’t)? Was it because Neeson felt Gotham needed to be "punished" for their sins? Did this go according to the comics originally?
What was up with the "Scarecrow" character, who was Arkum, the guy who runs the Gotham mental facility? Why did he flip and use those gases and put on that horrible mask? I thought this was mildly undeveloped.
Now, the whole thing about how Wayne returns to Gotham, meets Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) and begins building the Batcave, the Batmobile, making his weapons, and everything else, I just don’t know....some of it was cool, as we get a chance to see Bruce tunneling out the holes for the Batcave, but what was up with that Batmobile anyway? It was a prototype dune buggy of some kind that Fox (Freeman) had come up with, but Wayne modifies it as the "first" Batmobile----but it just looked so damn awkward compared to what we got in Tim Burton's version. But this may be going exactly to comic strategy, so I don’t know. And I have to be honest, folks....I know just about everyone in the world disagrees, and that’s okay, but I just didn’t know what to make of Bale under the cape and mask -- there was a small part of me that actually thought Keaton did a better job, especially in the first Burton picture. I thought the suit looked silly in Begins as opposed to Burton's Batman and the Caped Crusader's antics just seemed "off" compared to the way Keaton handled himself in Burton's version. It was almost as if I wish they could have taken Nolan's prequel story about how he is trained by Neeson and then returns to Gotham, and then stapled on Burton's version with Keaton to make the perfect Bat film. In all fairness, this is what Burton's film SHOULD have been, with depicting how the Caped One trained with Samurais and then returned to Gotham as Batman to seek revenge after his parents are murdered; instead, in Burton's version, the action starts off with a bang, with Keaton already being the Caped One and taking out thugs right from the beginning -- kind of what Mark Steven Johnson went for in Daredevil but what Sam Raimi did so right in his first Spider-Man film, where he showed the developing powers of Peter Parker without the need for a prequel story.
And yes, I thought it was very clever how this newly-minted and helmed franchise is going to re-introduce the next villain, when Bale gets the bag with the Joker card inside it.....I just KNOW whoever plays this guy next (rumor has it it's going to be Johnny Depp) won't come close to Nicholson in Burton's film. And that's what makes this franchise just seem so.....odd right now....and the same thing is going to happen when Superman Returns hits the screens. We have an already-established franchise by Warner Brothers with Tim Burton directing the first two Bat films and Joel Schumacher doing the last two (which completely took us out of the whole Batman mystery with a neon-infused Gotham complete with downright horrendous and off character performances by George Clooney, Val Kilmer, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Alicia Silverstone) and now Christopher Nolan comes along and creates an all-new beginning to the franchise and it just seems "odd" in conjunction with the other original franchise collection.....
But that's not really relevant in that I thought this was clever attempt to re-tell the story as a whole, this time making better explanation of Bruce Wayne's training before becoming the Dark Knight --- and while I still have a soft spot for Michael Keaton in the first role (especially behind the mask) there is no doubt Bale was much better than Kilmer or Clooney in the role. I think all comic-turned-film stories should go this route, that is, having an explanation story attached to them as how they become these heroes; I don’t necessarily believe that they should be done with prequel re-inventions of the franchise, as in this case, but I think Sam Raimi did it best in the less-than-two-hours running time of the first Spidey picture.
Like I said, I need to sit down and re-watch this from beginning to end without interruption to get a feel for the film again and consider whether or not this would be something worth purchasing, because, to be honest friends, at this point, I just don’t know, if you can believe that.
Warner delivered a gorgeous widescreen transfer here for Batman Begins, one that I could detect no real problems with. I believe there's a full screen version available separately as well. The video was impressive, that I remember, but I'll go back to reconfirm.
Audio, surprisingly, only came in a Dolby Digital 5.1 variant (being that the original franchise films were just repackaged with DTS mixes included) but this track was really no slouch -- once you applied the correct amplification to it. A bit soft in dialogue sequences, the track really heated up during action breaks with a ton of panning around the soundstage and, from what I can recall, a WALLOP of LFE which was a very nice touch. In sum, though, the track suffered from what I like to call the "Dolby Digital Decibel Level Syndrome," where you can simply tell a "blanket" could have been lifted off this track so it could breathe a bit better and deliver a bit more punch than it did at lower volume levels.