Key to surviving Batman Begins: Take strong alcoholic beverage to movie theater with you. Drink every time someone says the word "fear". By about the 15 minute mark, you should be blasted enough to withstand the rest of the movie with minimal pain.
...I'm saying this was not a very good movie. In fact, I daresay it was a bad movie. Here, let me break the problems down for you. Spoiler-free version.
Look at that cast. That's a hell of a cast, isn't it? People there have won Oscars. Some of the most acclaimed actors you can get. You'd have to do some hard work to make a movie they were in not work. Now, look at the screenwriter's previous credits. That, ladies and gentlemen, would be the work one would have to do to create the kind of unnatural godawful dialogue that no actor, no matter how talented, can do anything good with. Add in a director who does not know how to direct action scenes (hint: hold your camera still and let us actually see some of the action, or at the very least allow your viewer a chance to be able to make sense of what's going on on screen), terrible pacing, and a torturously long running time. Bake at 350 degrees, add Katie Holmes as needed (hint: Katie Holmes is not needed.)
It has its moments, but they're few and far between, and if you aren't already a fan of or versed in the Batman mythos (as my viewing companion nekoleo was not), you will not appreciate many of those moments. There are a dozen or so really good lines, but they're in a sea of total crap. I don't regret seeing it, and enjoyed it for its utter mediocrity, but, hoo lord, what a massive letdown.
The first fifteen minutes of this movie were a terrible tragedy for me. I sat there, going, 'This is cool. This is cool. This is... ... jesus, how many times did he say the word 'fear' in that sentence? And now he's going on a fetchquest?' It took about an hour for me to give up hope entirely and accept that this was just not a very good movie and enjoy it for its not goodness. The worst flaw is the dialogue. God, it's so awful. So many lines that no actual human being has ever said ever. Katie Holmes was definitely the worst offender here, with, sadly, Liam Neeson coming in second, but I suppose after being in a Star Wars film, he's managed to craft delivering bad lines fairly decently into an art.
The first hour of the movie, or however the hell long it took for Bruce to get back to Gotham and get his Bat on, was just plodding. WE GET THE POINT. HE HAS SOME ISSUES WITH FEAR. COULD YOU SAY IT A FEW MORE TIMES? FEAR FEAR FEAR. FEAR. For the record, Brucie, having your worst fear in the world be bats is pretty gay, and if you're going to have a panic attack in the last act of Don Giovanni because of it, well, you deserve what you get. (An aside, from former comic book nerd perspective: wtf? Who leaves an opera house out a side door into a dirty alley? Seriously, the Waynes would have gone out of the front and gotten valet service. I guess they're too good to go to the movies these days, but I guess Zorro wouldn't have given Brucie OH NOES MY PUSSINESS KILLED MY PARENTS guilt. Geekness over.) You'd think ninja training would be a totally interesting thing to see, but due to poor direction, well, what could have been tense action scenes were visually incoherent, and due to poor writing, the rest of that section of the plot was just dull as stale toast. "Liam Neeson is a ninja!!" I said with great amusement to Arielle. "No!" she said, "He's a Jedi!" "Not again!" Bruce Wayne fighting ninjas = should have been cool.
WTF Moment: "I will not be an executioner," says Bruce as he turns away the sword. And then proceeds to set fire to the building and blow a bunch of shit up very likely killing a lot of the people inside. Way to go, BW. Way to go.
I will say, ninja Liam Neeson turned me on. But it's Liam Neeson, and it's destined to happen. This will be a good point for me to segue into the actors. ...man, such good actors, so wasted. Christian Bale was an excellent Bruce Wayne (partly because I associate him so strongly with his character in American Psycho, who, heh, is entertaining to map onto Bruce. "Do you like Huey Lewis and the News, Lieutenant Gordon?") but... just not a good Batman, mostly because worst batvoice ever. Seriously, he made me laugh every time he opened his mouth as the bat. I just thought... would you like some hot tea? Maybe a little throat spray? Arielle said that he sounded like Raiden pretending to be Solid Snake at the beginning of Metal Gear Solid 2, only worse. I kept expecting him to go something like, "the shipment will be arriving in the Narrows at ackkhg ghhgt *ptoo* oh man, sorry, hell of a cold right now, what was I saying?" Also, at times his voice seemed to be digitally altered as Batman, which added to the whole it not working thing. Michael Keaton delivered a better "I'm Batman", than you, Christian, and do you know how short he is? You just think about that one, mister. (He's actually not that short, but doesn't he seem it? Replace 'short' with 'balding', then.)
Michael Caine, Rutger Hauer, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, they all did the best they could. Michael Caine basically got the best lines in the movie, and I'm glad for it. He deserves it. We won't even discuss Katie Holmes, because... well, jeez, what's to discuss, it's pretty obvious that you could have cut her part out of the movie and gotten me home thirty minutes earlier and none the worse for wear. Also: distracted by the fact that she is fourteen years old and now a Scientologist.
WTF Moment: *Katie Holmes answer cellphone* "Hello?" *literally a two second pause* "What? Who authorized that? Call judge so and so and do this and this and this..." Note to Katie: When pretending you are on the phone in a movie, it helps to actually pretend that someone on the other end has actually said something.
The two performances I liked best were Liam Neeson (despite bad lines) because he is hot, and the reveal that he is actually Ra's al-Ghul turned me the hell on. However, the movie failed to really explain Ra's, so a lot of that coolness is lost on most of the audience. Also, Cillian Murphy was pretty entertaining as the Scarecrow (and the insanity effects were pretty awesome, I must say, except for glowing-mouth-Batman, which made me laugh), and is roughly the most beautiful man ever. I'll forgive him lots of things for those lovely lush lips.
THE GRAND WTF MOMENT that probably only me and Arielle noted: Alfred says that there are tunnels beneath stately Wayne Manor because great-great-grandpa Wayne was part of the Underground Railroad, ferrying slaves to freedom in the North during the Civil War. .... .... .... YES, GOTHAM, THAT GREAT SOUTHERN CITY. THE JEWEL BENEATH THE MASON-DIXON, GOTHAM. Seriously, bitches, it's supposed to be New York-like, and by the time you were that far North, you would no longer need to skulk in tunnels. You can't put Gotham on a map, obviously, but this has to be the first time anyone's accused it of being in the South. Gotham, South Carolina. Myrtle Beach, Bludhaven, what's the difference?
The plot was pretty entertaining for being bad comic book sciencey, but, but... Batman? Okay, say you have an antidote to a weaponized hallucinogen (weapon is a verb now?). You know you're going to a place where you or possibly people you know will come in contact with this poison. It's probably a good idea, then, to leave the antidote in the Batcave so you can have a big retarded chase scene in the (admittedly totally awesome) Batmobile. NOTE TO BATMAN: YOUR RECKLESS DRIVING, MUCH LIKE YOUR PYROMANIA, DOES NOT HOLD UP WITH YOUR 'NOT AN EXECUTIONER' PLAN. But, man, I always did love the driving on roofs levels in Grand Theft Auto. (Note to Rockstar Games: Grand Theft Auto: Gotham! Because it's time to have a game set in the South, obviously.)
WTF Moment: Batman uses 30MP to use his Summon spell: Bats!! "Didn't this happen on an episode of Kenshin?" I said. "Oh, damn, that's not a good sign," said Arielle. "It was one of the bad ones, too! With Germans! And ninjas!"
In conclusion, it could have been saved if it were a) not nine hours long, b) lacking the pastede on yay love interest, and c) more with lines like "I'm going spelunking" and less with the "It's not what you are inside. It's what you do."
God, comic books are terrible.
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