Batman Begins (original) (raw)

Christopher Nolan presents a dark and deep new Batman, erasing memories of Joel Schumacher running the franchise into the ground, but never stepping on Tim Burton territory. Fellow Brit Christian Bale restores charisma to the lead and Michael Caine, underplaying nicely, makes a perfect foil as Alfred, Batman's batman. David Goyer, who wrote the Blade series and Dark City, provides unusual depth to this prequel. Bale is shown gradually evolving from a painful childhood and finding a specific form for his avenger, with help from Morgan Freeman, a boffin who parallels Bond's Q. But his transformation is slow and clunky, like the prototype Batmobile. Nolan adds Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon, sweet but plucky Katie Holmes, Tom Wilkinson, relishing a rare villain's role, a murky Gotham, a tersely effective script and enough bats to scare David Attenborough. The result is as good as you could hope for. It sees director Nolan going backwards, as he did in Memento, to great effect and might have been subtitled "How Bruce became the Boss".