Batman Begins (2005)

Warner Brothers

Rewatching Batman Begins reminded me of why I love movies, because you can view something once and form a strong opinion on it, even before you’ve seen the movie. Then there comes the time when you must rewatch it, likely after you’ve forgotten those reasons why you loved or hated it, so now you can view it with an open mind. This is what happened with Batman Begins, because I believe the first time I watched it, I held the Tim Burton films on such a high pedestal that there was no way anything would come close.

There really is no way you can fairly compare this Nolan movie to Burton’s movies. The character of Bruce Wayne/Batman is not the same; they’re almost two different characters who just happen to wear capes. You can easily compare Roger Moore’s Bond to Sean Connery’s Bond because they’re both playboy secret agents who get the girl, save the world, then get her again. However, you can’t compare Connery’s Bond to Craig’s Bond, which is the same for Burton’s Batman and Nolan’s Batman. The 1989 Batman was a dark and brooding character, whose alter ego wasn’t much different. Nolan actually takes apart the character of Bruce Wayne, and then reassembles him right before our eyes. I like how the first 45 minutes of the movie follows Bruce on some type of spiritual journey or vision quest that takes him half-way around the world. He learns to discipline himself through martial arts with a shadowy band of ninjas, which plays a greater role later on. Nolan also explains just how Bruce gets the suit and the gadgets, which is the most interesting part to me. In 1989, Joker asked where Batman got all of his wonderful toys, and now we see they’re all from the basement of Wayne Industries. This Bruce Wayne has his own version of “Q”, who supplies him with unused military gadgets and weapons that can be used for “spelunking”. Morgan Freeman simply owns that role.

Morgan Freeman isn’t the only awesome cast member, though. Michael Caine is a great choice for Alfred, who plays more of a friend and mentor to Bruce than that of just a simple butler. Liam Neeson’s role as Ducard is awesome too, because he gets to do all the things I want to see from Liam, which is kick ass and give speeches that sound cool. I also enjoyed Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne, much more than I did before, it’s just I still don’t like his voice as Batman. He sounds like he needs a cough drop. 

I said you can’t fairly compare this Batman to past Batman movies but yet there is one area that needs to be mentioned. Nolan seems much more capable as an action movie director than Tim Burton. So I think that explains why Burton focused much more on characters and set pieces, he’s a visual artist, so he focused on his strengths in that area. I feel both Burton’s and Nolan’s movies have their merits and are very good movies for very different reasons. The 1989 Batman is a Batman movie, while Batman Begins is a Bruce Wayne movie. Bruce just happens to fight crime with a cape, rather than in a blue uniform with a squad car.