Batman Begins: The Thread

*Gary Oldman felt perfect as Gordon, but he didn't have to much to do in the film except look confused. Hopefully the sequels will expand on his character. Ditto for Cilian Murphy.

*I thought Katie Holme's performance was perfectly okay. The aforementioned scene in the car was quite important, and the final scene with it's "Bruce Wayne is the mask" speech was interesting, though the film showed too little interaction between Holmes and Bale to make it as effective as it was supposed to have been.

*Bale was great as Bruce Wayne, and the film should've shown more scenes of him as an asshole playboy. His Batman did look kinda silly, but thankfully the film showed Batman sparingly, which fitted nicely with the idea of him as an myth that raises fear in the hearts of the wicked. However, all the talk about Batman as a symbol and not a man felt like the film was trying to dodge the aforementioned problematics of vigilantism and revenge, because Bruce Wayne so clearly human and not an icon.

*Morgan Freeman played the same role as he always does. I don't doubt he's a good actor, but he's seems to be more terminally typecast than any other Hollywood actor. Michael Caine was brilliant as Alfred, probably the best preformance in the whole film, and the scene he shared with Freeman was charming.

*The "humorous" one-liners ("Nice ride!" etc.) felt stupid; it was nice that the film had a bit of humour in it, but it was only funny when it was an organic part of the story, such as the quips Alfred made.

*From what I gathered from the film, and from the comics, the "fear gas" produced by Scarecrow is not an ordinary hallucinogenic; it's supposed to make your worst fears come true, otherwise the whole plot to destroy Gotham wouldn't have worked at all. However, the effects of the gas seemed to be highly selective.

I recently watched this movie again and I gotta say, Burton's version is crap. Aside from some nice design work here and there, the acting is uniformly terrible (Nicholson excepted, but only partially), the plot goes nowhere, the action scenes are stiff and pointless, the whole thing feels very claustrophobic and directionless at the same time. Nothing ever feels like its at stake, since you can't take any of Nicholson's "crimes" remotely seriously (there is no genuine horror or drama in his violence - no matter how much Kim Basinger shrieks). The world created does not feel or look like anything more than a soundstage, populated by a handful of people who are goofily overacting. Easily one of Burton's worst.

the second one is much better.

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I have nothing against against Batman's crypto-fascism as such, but I don't like stories which
A) despite his vigilantism present him as serious, "realistic" character, and
B) make him the hero.

I like only the Batman stories where either A or B applies, but not both of them. As I said, if you want to take Batman seriously, you have to take his politics seriously too.

you must hate "Taxi Driver".

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Dan, that should answer your question. If Batman fights against vampires or Joker's cunning plans, I don't feel the need to dissect his politics. And no, I don't like Taxi Driver.

And in any case, I don't think, from Batman Begins, you can really say what Batman's attitudes are. He's confused and plagued by doubt!

I wasn't saying that, I was just saying I don't like films where vigilantism is portrayed heroic. Superhero stories in general are so far away from real life and real politics that you don't much care for their ethical implications. Dark Knight Returns and Batman Begins, however, are much more political and realistic, and therefore you have to choose whether you accept the morality of the story or not.

That was one of my favourite parts of the movie!!!
This bit (which is completely absent in the comics Bat-Mythos) shows young Bruce as much more human than the whole 12-year-old making a vow at his parents' gravesite did. He spent most of his life just pissed off and angry at the world, and it took seeing his long-fostered revenge fantasy being played out--only by someone else!--to challenge that.
So of course, once he puts the cape and cowl on, seven years later, he's still generally not that concerned with the world beyond his own immediate goals. He's reckless and shows callous disregard for anyone beyond his little cadre. Asshole Bruce Wayne isn't entirely the mask Batman wants us to think it is.
Hopefully, the sequel will give us Batman Matures and we'll see him forced to deal with some of the consequences of this stuff.
Like maybe Gordon will get his ass kicked by his fellow cops for being buddies with the guy who sent so many of them to the hospital.

But I don't think Batman Begins does that. I'm probably almost as much as a pinko liberal as you, but the film didn't offend me, because I didn't see it as pushing a simple "vigilatism-is-good" line. The overall feeling one got was one of a lack of moral resolution. You don't even have to identify with the particular ethical struggle he's going through to respond to him as a conflicted, morally serious human. We all have struggles of our own of some sort.

this happens in Miller's "Batman: Year One" (actually the cops try to kill Gordon's baby - after their initial beating fails to dissuade him), and I'd be surprised if something close to it does not come into play in the films.

you're telling me?

Huk-L on Every Major Batman Storyline of the Last 20 Years

I have nothing morally convoluted protagonists, but I don't see them as heroes. The guy in Taxi Driver is not hero. The problem with Batman is that, according to the superhero logic, he still needs to be hero. And that what makes taking him seriously problematic.

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I agree with Ebert, but he apparently sees this as a strength, whereas I see it as a weakness.

Given the quasi-fascist tendencies inherent in Batman, there are still different ways one could treat the story. One Batman could be so campy, clownish, and nonviolent that he's basically a stand in for the revenge fantasies that are buried somewhere in everyone's head. Another Batman could be an unabashed celebration of fascist vigilantism. Or as Tuomas says, Batman could become an anti-hero whose killing puts him on the same level as his enemies. I felt like Batman Begins fell in between all of these approaches and ended up being weaker for it.

Seriously though, I don't see how the League of Shadows changes anything I've said. Basically the point of view of the film is that yeah, Batman may break a few eggs when he goes on his vigilante rampages but hey, at least he's not trying to bring down the whole society! It's a similar dynamic to the Bush administration's defense of the use of torture or the war in Iraq. "What we're doing may be bad, it may be technically illegal, but hey we're fighting these other guys who are much worse so can't you see that we're heroes?"

And I think that as Tuomas pointed out Batman is already a hero by default, based on the character's cinematic history and the nature of the superhero form itself. So it's a huge uphill battle to sell that idea of a ambiguous, conflicted Batman to an audience that is just there for the action and destruction.

It's such a huge uphill battle that the movie has made over $100 million in the US alone! Clearly no one wanted to see a movie like this.

you correctly assume that I (and others) would argue that this is a dubious assertion, that "superhero" = inspirational role model. The term itself is misleading, as it is derived from the most lillywhite of morally virtuous characters, Superman. But most of my favorite superhero stuff functions more as allegory, or myth, or cautionary tale, or morality play, etc. On some juvenile level, as a kid, sure I thought dressing up in long underwear and beating up people would be TEH COOLEST - but as I grew older I found myself gleaning different "lessons" from this kind of material.

(cue Stan Lee: "with great power comes great responsibility!" etc.)

The alternative was what? The utter destruction of Gotham City? All of the negatives you listed are overshadowed and presumably justified by the fact that he saved the city. Do you honestly believe that the audience was supposed to think Batman's actions were a mistake?

It's such a huge uphill battle that the movie has made over $100 million in the US alone! Clearly no one wanted to see a movie like this.

Huh? I said it was an uphill battle to convince audiences that Batman is anything but a hero. The movie didn't automatically succeed in that task just because millions of people saw it. I doubt a significant portion of that audience's response went beyond "awesome! Batman kicked some ass, drove a fast tank and had a naked romp with 2 hot chicks!"

sounds like the soft bigotry of low expectations! heheh

seriously, yr criticisms all stems from your assumption that Batman must be a character worthy of emulation, when he has a rich history of being much more morally ambiguous. I can't count the number of times/scenarios in which Superman has scolded Batman for being too violent/harsh/fascistic...

I never said he must be. I said that I think he is portrayed that way.

Hint to Tuomas and Walter: you don't actually have to claim that all depictions of superheroes are necessarily heroic.

Hint to Andrew: neither of us made that claim.

I never said he must be. I said that I think he is portrayed that way.

Hint to Tuomas and Walter: you don't actually have to claim that all depictions of superheroes are necessarily heroic.

Hint to Andrew: neither of us made that claim.

I don't think there are any real clear-cut examples, but there are ones where the "hero's" heroic aspects openly conflict with other impulses - the Incredible Hulk TV show (there are some heroic aspects to the Hulk being "wrongly persecuted", at the same time, he gets pissed and randomly smashes things). Wolverine in the X-Men movies (who, btw are NOT crimefighters, in the strict sense of the term, in either film) is clearly portrayed as having an amoral side.

The main problem with yr query is that the majority of superhero stuff has all come out in the last decade or so, and most of them (horrible as they are) have been lame cash-ins on a freshly established formula - up until then the "costumed avenger" trope was usually deliberately "dumbed down" for a children's audience (and hence morally simplified). so there isn't much to choose from. Comics, however, provide a much wider range of interpretations and material.