Batman Begins

This is a very good movie--plenty of well-filmed action, some nice but unobtrusive special effects, good characters and good acting. Co-written and directed by Memento writer/director Christopher Nolan, the movie, like my favorite 1930s gangster movies, combines the best of old and new comics--a dark view of a decaying urban society and an unbendable altruism and optimism from the good guys. (The more 'modern' amoral sadism of, say, 'Sin City', is far less appealing.) Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne does a good job brooding about, and shows a very impressive physique, especially for someone who had turned himself into a human skeleton to play an edge-of-sanity-insomniac in last year's The Machinist. As the co-star love interest, Katie Holmes as crusading DA Rachel Dawes was a poor choice. Holmes looks like she's about 14 years old, and regardless of the scene is always wearing a silly half-smirk. Luckily she's not around that much, and her negative presence is more than compensated for by the high quality of other secondary actors--probably the best thing about the film. It would be nice to see a movie where Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson (again playing a martial arts mentor--is he being typecast, a friend of mine asks), Gary Oldman, Rutger Hauer and Tom Wilkinson all get to play larger parts. But their scenes here are little bits of excellence that help float the movie above the run-of-the-mill superhero flick. Also very good is Cillian Murphy as the creepy Dr. Jonathan Crane (later, I imagine, to become the villian the Scarecrow). There are plenty of set-ups for sequels if they care to make any, but the loose ends splay out fairly naturally rather than being the eagerly pumped up come-ons common to studio blockbusters. If the producers can maintain the quality of 'Begins,' I'll be among the first in line to see the next prequel. Or sequel. Or whatever.