Batman Begins, Part 2

Many critics of Batman Begins agree that the film is a refreshing return to the style of Tim Burton's films after the bad taste the synthetic dazzle of Joel Schumacher left on us. But does Nolan's rendition surpass Burton's acclaimed Batman from 1989? Even with Jack Nicholson's outstanding performance as Joker in mind, I would say yes. The portrayal of Batman villains tends to be a good indicator of how the dark knight will come across to audiences. In the previous four motion pictures we saw one nut job to next fighting for the spotlight, leaving the cape crusader conveniently in the shadows. This demarcation is clearly present in Burton's original. Despite some skepticism permeating the media before the film's release, Michael Keaton was able to evade the Mr. Mom/Beetleguise quirkiness primarily because of Nicholson's convincing return to the cuckoo's nest. Thus we were able to accept Keaton's performance seriously--he was the only sane strand we could grasp. However, as each subsequent film continued to churn out villains more eccentric than the previous ones, the artificial apparatus was exposed. The villains remained wacky, yet the Batmans became campy. Schumacher's Batman and Robin failed to gain respect from the audience when Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze exclaimed, "Let's kick some ice," and George Clooney's Batman whipped out a Bat-Credit Card. We dismissed our standards and interest in a matter of minutes.

Batman Begins erases itself from this embarrassing pedigree by demanding more stamina from our senses, memory, and patience. A perpetual theme in Batman comics is the dark knight's close connection and indebtedness to his enemies. This theme was briefly touched on in Burton's original, as the Joker and Batman inform each other that the other was responsible for who they have become. But Nolan's film explores these relationships further, drawing on the comics for inspiration, but yet finding innovative ways of adapting the characters to one coherent storyline. Ra's Al Ghul (Liam Neeson) is an Oedipal father figure, which coupled with Alfred's (Michael Cane) nurturing completes the parental substitution for Bruce Wayne's absent mother and father. It is Ra's Al Ghul's authority, knowledge, and skills Wayne must first learn before he can transcend them to find his own identity. The Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) is Batman's equal, his doppelganger. Both are tormented by hidden fears and learn to harness these fears by inducing them in others from behind a mask. As we struggle in teasing out the complexities surrounding Batman's growth and development, the Scarecrow becomes a foil that mirrors the same mental and behavioral condition in a much more lucid state. Falcone (Tom Wilkinson) is an allegorical figure for all of Gotham's corruption that penetrates each level of society, and yet he is also a double. Like Batman, Falcone is an opportunist who sets out to convert chaos into order, the only difference being his motivation to achieve wealth and power where Batman seeks justice and self-reconciliation. In each case, these characters serve a deeper role in the film integral to the character development of Nolan's Batman. The cast aptly portrays these figures by not reinforcing absolute extremes of good vs. evil, serious vs. comical, and light vs. dark but by emphasizing more complex human and societal themes that crossover such binary oppositions.

Batman Begins, Part 1

Fear: The universal human emotion that serves as a catalyst for the most courageous deeds and also the most destructive behaviors. With the wake of terrorism, the war in Iraq, and a culturally and politically polarized society, Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins penetrates the inner psyche and arouses our most suppressed thoughts and desires. The film succeeds where the latter half of the previous run of Batman films failed in appealing to a wide, diverse audience by eschewing contemporary pop culture for more timeless themes.

As a summer blockbuster, Batman Begins must endure months at the box office, advertise through consumer product lines, and accommodate repeat customers to earn revenues that exceed production costs. What ensures its success are young males who come out in droves and expend almost all of their disposable income to indulge in hi-fi sound, innovative action scenes, and seamless visuals. However, as David Denby writes in The New Yorker, "a good part of this audience has never known the satisfactions of story and characterization and emotional involvement." Batman Begins surpasses its promise of special effects and of an all-star cast as a crossover film that will cultivate and rekindle new legions of Batman fans from intended and unexpected demographics.

The film's tone and narrative content respond to the darker Batman stories that have appeared in recent decades. Perhaps the most influential are Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One, both of which capitalize on the psychological and emotional complexities surrounding Batman's mental state and origins. The contributions of Miller, Alan Moore, and Jeff Loeb rescued the caped crusader from the campy images of the 60s television show to permenantly engrave the darker character into the comic book canon. But this is not say that Batman had always resided in the comfortably secluded realms of fantasy and the surreal. Even in the 1940s the Byronic hero was a difficult pill for the average reader to swallow, always operating on a precarious bridge between the disturbingly real and the distant netherworld.

Nolan's film frightens us and yet intrigues us, for the Batman he presents could be anyone of us, and anyone of us could turn out like this Batman. In a journey from childhood trauma to exercising social justice, we are given not a virile, chiseled god of untainted morale and resolve. Instead, we find a feeble, disturbed victim of what all of us experience and cautiously await. This pulp adaptation is not a laughing matter, but a sober reminder.