I'm not really a big fan of the caped crusader. As a teenager, I was a big fan of ultraviolent movies, like many my age, and my "comic book vigilante" tastes ran more toward the antics of Frank Castle, better known as The Punisher, a deeply disturbed Vietnam Vet who saw his entire family slaughtered by mobsters and embarked upon an almost suicidal one-man-war on crime that continues to this day. In those days, the anti-hero Punisher seemed grounded in a certain gritty 1980s "war-on-drugs" era reality, and there was a grimness and sense of despair in Frank Castle that appealed to my adolescent self, I suppose.
That is not to say that the more fanciful Batman mythos was not without some appeal, but not being a big D.C. comics reader, the film and TV interpretations were my only real exposure to Bob Kane's iconic creation in my youth.
As a 14-year old,for instance, I found little charm in the campy 1960s incarnation in reruns on the TV, and was greatly disappointed by the grotesquely overhyped Tim Burton take on the character. The ludicrousness of Bruce Wayne's modus operandi, i.e. dressing up like a giant bat in a stiff, rubbery suit to "scare criminals" had an air of the ludicrous, which was not helped at all by the stilted action depicted in the Tim Burton-helmed movies. Throw a punch? Please! Michael Keaton could barely raise his arms in that getup.
Frank Castle's persona and methods, on the other hand, manifested more realism. The Punisher had no real gimmick or mask or secret identity: his imposing physique, perpetually grim expression and Kevlar armour emblazoned with a giant skull were all he needed to intimidate criminals... and besides, I think killing the criminals was higher on his priority list then intimidating them.
The further 90s iterations of the Batman franchise only served to renforce my antipathy toward the character: I was completely uninterested in the animated versions, and found the ridiculous Joel Shumacher films annoying. I was first introduced to Harry Knowles's site, as many others were, when I caught wind of his now-legendary obliteration of the third sequel, Batman and Robin, an event that some say simultaneously ushered in a new era in the internet (the era of the uber-powerful online movie geek?) and put the moribund franchise on ice for almost a decade. Good riddance!
But then, three years ago, Chris Nolan made Batman Begins. Was it the perfect superhero movie? No, of course not. There were some false notes: Katie Holmes in over her head as the love interest, some bad fight-scene editing, and some groan-worthy expository dialogue during the runaway-L-train climax immediately spring to mind. But you could feel that Nolan was on to something with his "re-boot" approach. Instead of simply swallowing the Batman's 1930s origin story holus-bolus and proceeding as if it were a given, Nolan chose to re-interpret and update it, grounding the Batman's origin story in a reality that today's filmgoer could swallow.
I remember thinking that it was almost as if all the comics and films that had come before had been legends, that is to say, embellished retellings of a story that had actually taken place; tales about a mysterious man who really had existed, but whose exploits were now lost in the mists of time, like those of the heroes of Troy, or the knights of the round table. Batman Begins seems to be offering us a more reality-based take on the mythical character known as "the Bat-Man", showing us the "facts" that form the basis of that myth. Batman, this version shows us, is not some supernatural being, but rather a man who has harnessed extraordinary wealth and physical gifts, and trained himself rigourously in order to put them in the service of good, all the while cultivating an aura of mystery so as to strike fear into the criminals he stalks. Batman, we learn, is really just a ninjitsu-trained billionaire masquerading as a playboy in order to pursue his virtuous vigilanteism.
Perhaps it was purely coincidence that Batman Begins came into being in an era where films like Troy and King Arthur were offering stripped-down versions of two of the legendary stories most central to Western society, removing the centuries of accretions and interpretations to get back to, if not the historical basis of each myth, at least more plausible versions grounded to some degree in "reality" --which did not prevent mostly justifiable accusations of historical innaccuracy and fabrication in each case, incidentally.
With Troy, this re-interpretation meant excising "the gods" from the story almost entirely, and offering compelling explanations for iconic references like Achilles' famous heel and the Greek gift of a wooden horse. In King Arthur, it meant losing the supernatural elements and questing beasts, turning Merlin into a loincloth clad druid, and stripping off the late medieval period plate armour common in so many depictions in favour of late roman chain-mail more appropriate to the post-roman Britain in which the historical Artorius likely lived (By the way, another film that adopts this approach is 2007's Last Legion, which starred Colin Firth, and which would not otherwise merit a mention, given that it was mostly crap and anachronistic in the extreme).
The relatively unspectacular box-office take of these films illustrates that re-envisioning beloved legends and mythical archetypes is an endeavour fraught with peril, not to be taken lightly, but Chris Nolan's deft handling of the problematic areas of the Batman mythos also shows that it can be pulled off.
Batman Begins offers alot of explanations to questions that have never been satisfactorily answered before. i.e. Why Bruce Wayne really picked the bat as his symbol; How he was trained to do what he does; Where he got the equipment to begin his mission; What his ultimate goal is. And at every step, we find that the explanation is plausible... far-fetched, certainly, but definitely not supernatural.
Now, with his very dark follow-up, The Dark Knight, Nolan takes us one step further into this plausible world he has created, and in its disconcerting realism, we find it more nightmarish than we could have imagined. In this sequel that surpasses the first film in every way, Nolan has created a surprisingly moving tragedy and a really effective crime drama featuring horrifying moral dilemmas and very effective action set-pieces.
I'm not going to parrot everything the critics have already stated about the "Godfather II of superhero movies", but I will say that the comparisons to Michael Mann's Heat strike me as quite appropriate. Tonally, and in terms of their style, ensemble cast and scope, the movies are indeed comparable. The performances in the Dark Knight are everything you have heard they are too, and a startling turn by the late Heath Ledger as a nihilistic psychopathic Joker is every bit as haunting and disturbing as reported --it will stay with you. If there is a weak link in the chain, it is Ms. Gyllenhaal, whose status as a sex symbol and "it girl" continue to baffle me and countless others.
Regardless, this movie is grim, brutal, unforgiving. Characters are forced to compromise their integrity, characters we want to see succeed fail and some we care about die. The film will punish you, but it will also reward you.
Maybe the Dark Knight will be the movie that finally manages to transcend the "superhero movie" genre, and be recognized for the masterpiece it is.
Go see this movie, and see it in IMAX.
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