Batman Begins: The Thread

This makes 20% doubt seem a bit excessive.

a few thoughts:

the worst thing about c. bale is his mouth. it ruins all his acting. the unfortunate thing about batman is that the mouth is all you see, too. still, I didn't mind him and thought he was OK, partly because he seemed quite lacking, in personality, perhaps--better than OTT.

wouldn't the microwave vaporisor thing have used its microwaves to vaporise the water in people, too?

couple of silly things that were vital to the story's progress:

when batman first met the scarecrow and didn't catch him because the scarecrow totally set batman on fire and batman had to jump out of a window--how come he got totally set on fire, as if he had been soaking in petrol?

and the bit when he went down amongst the gas-affected people, after he had lost his grapple gun in a fight with shadow guys, and was jumped upon by the strangely curious, supposedly scared masses and managed to find his gun just lying on the ground

I didn't like the scarecrow guy's mouth, either, and am not wild about katie holmes'

I don't like morgan freeman, as a rule, but he was OK

quite liked gary oldman, despite the necessary, stupid lines ("I gotta get me one of those" re: batmobile)

the v. funny bit where the bum he'd given his coat to, seven years earlier, turned up at the drugs thing where he put tom wilkinson on the spotlight and b.man says "nice coat" and the bum says "thanks"

liam neeson, I dislike, too

nice to see freddie starr and tim booth with bit-parts, though, and ken barlow's son as bruce wayne's dad

Who was Booth again? (Also, RJG, did yer get my mail?)

(I did, ned, and I will reply, soon!)

Booth was in a band called James, they had a big hit in 1990 with "Been Caught Stealing

I love you.

He threw gas all over Batman while he was freaking out.

I think I share Ally's amazing mutant ability to pay attention to movies.

they have to film them all close-in and shakey, so that it doesn't look like the stationary-camera-fifteen-feet-away, twelve-guys-in-frame TV-batman fights that look silly, with two guys, standing to the side, waiting for their pals to get beat up, before they start fighting, I guess

but, yeah, you know what's happening: batman is having a fight etc, but it is difficult to tell what it looks like

I thought it was fucking outstanding, great fun (all you people complaining about it being po-faced - there are ninjas and a tank and a man dressed as a bat and Michael Caine making one-liners, for heaven's sake; Bruce Wayne doens't bring the funny because he's a fucked-up repressed-homosexual [why is his mum not mentioned at all? because he's in love with his dad, stethescope-as-penis, innit] borderline-sociopathic orphan with identity issues), scary (the fights were confusing because this is not Rocky, it is Alien, you're not meant to know what's going on anymore than the thugs are - plus Scarecrow, fucking hell, and Batman when he turns all fucking nasty black-metal-dripping-gore-from-his-mouth in Cilian's mind).

Casting was spot-on - Bale plays confused, empty, brooding, driven lunatics very well, and I admire his masochistic body-morphing ultimate-method-actor stance, though fear he will soon be dead if he carries on. Cillian Murphy gets better and better everytime I see him in something - get hold of Disco Pigs; he may be pretty but he's one scary fucker. Katie Holmes was functional but I'm glad her relationship with Thumb Cruise has got her dropped for the next one. Crispin Glover as The Joker would be perfect, please God let it happen. Oldman seemed to me to be onscreen too little to tell whether he was any good, which means he was fucking excellent because you don't notice Gary Oldman at all. Morgan Freeman just being Morgan Freeman, which is always watchable. Rutger didn't seem like Rutger, Tom Wilkinson was good but looks English, which no accent can disguise. Caine just great, and I don't reckon to like him.

Loved the "no titles" thing. Also liked that there wasn't a big musical theme / motif. Not sure how I felt about the parent-death thing. Liked that they'd gone to the opera to see that Strauss thing about a bat. Thought the dialogue with Alfred about becoming a bat and abstarction etcetera was great. Lots of other things buzzing but want to see it again and most things have probably been said already and better. Didn't look at my watch once.

Dan Perry and Ally otm throughout this thread, btw.

OTM. It's like watching Lucifer cavorting.

None at all. You first see a slew of bats against the sun, then young Bruce on the grounds of the estate, etc. etc.

DIDN'T YOU GET THE MEMO?!?

Did I mention that I loved the theme of Bruce Wayne's eternal quest not so much for justice but for daddy-approval and daddy-surrogate-approval. Maybe I identified a little much with that.

Being a big movie-title-paying-attention-to dork I think this might have fucked up my appreciation of the first 15 minutes or so. I kept thinking "is this still all pre-credit stuff? where's the cool title sequence?" The subtle bat thing in the sky was really nice though. I definitely have to see this again since I seem to have missed the boat the first time.

I thought there was too much Linus Roache, really, especially since the inspiration is supposed to be the deaths of both Thomas and Martha Wayne. It was a little naff to treat his mother like window dressing. I also wondered why he was so non-to-the-manor-born.

Glad I called the Ra's - Ducard thing way back, though it was obvious. Made for fun viewing.

Wayne Manor infiltratted and fucked up worse than Batman Forever. Memo to filmmakers - Bruce Wayne is meant to be an extraordinarily paranoid man. I loved the power of the sequence, and obv. his b-day is a good excuse, but still, I'd like to see the badguys really work for their arson habits next time.

The word "fear" (insert Scritti gag). Totally overabused.

Jim Gordon was originally from Chicago, right? Coulda had fun with that, what with where the city scenes were filmed.

The Bateman-Batman interweave (btw, Brett Easton Ellis made that joke himself in the book, 14 years ago). I could see the differences and the resemblances, but I still kept thinking (or wishing) Bale would say to someone "Not if you want to keep your spleen" or declare himself "a massive fan of the Talking Heads".

Engorged ham. Sorry, I'm with 'em on this one.

Falcone was disposed of a bit too quickly for someone who'd been top dog for decades. There was a plausible enough reason for him to be at the bust when it went down, but I thought it could've enhanced the detective procedural references the filmmakers have been talking up (Serpico, The French Connection etc) if Batman had worked more to take him down.

Holmes felt unnecessary right until the end when she protected the boy and tasered the Scarecrow. Something in those scenes really brought the heart into the film, and it didn't feel shoehorned-in in a "we're just trying to give the love interest something to do"-way. Though in her last scene, I kept waiting for her to say "It's you, Peter Parker. It's always been YOU!"

Cillian was far more pouffy than the Joker! How'll Crispin keep up if he scores the role? Liked the "morphing" mask a lot.

The 3 core guys in the Bat-circle were good. I liked Bale's energy, which made him appear like a confident, rookie Batman to Keaton's more assurred, stoic caped crusader.

Fight scenes hurt my eyes, mostly because of the hayfever. I loved the final ninja training sequence.

Nice nods to Bruce's obsessiveness (gets up, drinks the health juice, falls to the floor and push-ups ahoy).

Fear-gas Batman was so cool. Playboy Bruce was classic.

I really wanted them to include the end of Batman: Year One issue one where as a pre-Bat vigilante, he fucks up, barely makes it home, and then decides on his new guise when the bat flies by, or crashes through the window (liked the bat appearing indoors, and the new cave, which had a nice work-in-progress touch - can anyone say "way sexier lair in the next one"?). Partly because Frank Miller is so cool (though the original 1938 version, where he's all like "That's it! A bat! I shall become a bat!", is somewhat rofflelicious). Kind of made up for it with the brilliant bat-summoning tho.

Sequel thoughts: they could still get Dick Grayson as Robin to fit! Read the Robin: Year One collection, which also features ninjas, crime and violent beatings.

I am looking forward to the DVD.

Did anyone else think that Oldman was creepy when he was touching young Bruce's face? Until I realised he was Commissioner Gordon-to-be I had him pegged as an evil stumbling block for the young Wayne.

The bat thing in the titles really was superbly done, too.

Also, Johnny Depp as the Joker in the next one (should they go that way) seems like the best choice.

HAW

i was worried for the first 20 mins or so with the rather cheesy liam neeson parts, but it all came good in the end.

Hurrah! can't wait for the next ones, Bale is brilliant!

If Returns is 4/5 for me, Begins is certainly a 3.5.