Batman Listens to Speeches
Jul. 10th, 2005 08:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinWe just saw Batman Begins. It's not bad, mostly because of some great performances from the supporting cast, particularly Michael Caine who utterly steals the movie as Alfred the butler, Liam Neeson as the creepy vigilante sensei gone bad, and Tom Wilkinson as a mob boss who turns out to be the lowest rung in a Lensmen-like Ladder of Villains (give that man's dialect coach a medal). The cinematography and design are great, and I liked the portrayal of Batman as a kind of boogeyman who snatches bad guys up into the shadows before they can blink; that pretty effectively conveyed the idea that Batman's supposed to be scary rather than just sort of gothic.
Boy howdy, though, this movie sure does love its speeches. Everyone young Wayne meets is irresistably drawn to declaim at him for a couple of minutes about the nature of justice, vengeance and power (it's especially painful when Katie Holmes does this). It's an interesting theme, but less telling and more showing would be nice. One thing I liked about Gary Oldman as good cop Gordon is that he's the one guy who doesn't blabber on forever; his one extended comment at the very end actually makes an interesting point that I didn't expect the movie to bring up.
Christian Bale is pretty good as Bruce Wayne, but as Batman he uses this Cookie Monster voice that is more silly than scary. Also, it's jarring that in a movie that tries so hard to give logical explanations for everything in Batman's world, the climactic evil plot is such a piece of nonsense.
As movies about Batman go, Batman Begins is one of the better ones; it certainly holds together better than Schumacher's two and probably better than Burton's. (I do have a soft spot in my heart for the Sixties movie made between seasons of the goofy TV series, which probably just marks me as Not A True Batman Fan.)
As comic-book-superhero movies go, I wouldn't say I enjoyed Batman Begins nearly as much as either of Sam Raimi's terrific Spiderman movies, either of Bryan Singer's nifty X-Men movies, or, for that matter, The Incredibles, which I think deserves to be judged as a straight superhero story and is actually one of the best ever made.
Boy howdy, though, this movie sure does love its speeches. Everyone young Wayne meets is irresistably drawn to declaim at him for a couple of minutes about the nature of justice, vengeance and power (it's especially painful when Katie Holmes does this). It's an interesting theme, but less telling and more showing would be nice. One thing I liked about Gary Oldman as good cop Gordon is that he's the one guy who doesn't blabber on forever; his one extended comment at the very end actually makes an interesting point that I didn't expect the movie to bring up.
Christian Bale is pretty good as Bruce Wayne, but as Batman he uses this Cookie Monster voice that is more silly than scary. Also, it's jarring that in a movie that tries so hard to give logical explanations for everything in Batman's world, the climactic evil plot is such a piece of nonsense.
As movies about Batman go, Batman Begins is one of the better ones; it certainly holds together better than Schumacher's two and probably better than Burton's. (I do have a soft spot in my heart for the Sixties movie made between seasons of the goofy TV series, which probably just marks me as Not A True Batman Fan.)
As comic-book-superhero movies go, I wouldn't say I enjoyed Batman Begins nearly as much as either of Sam Raimi's terrific Spiderman movies, either of Bryan Singer's nifty X-Men movies, or, for that matter, The Incredibles, which I think deserves to be judged as a straight superhero story and is actually one of the best ever made.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-07-10 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-10 06:50 pm (UTC)Violet's combination of powers was the most obvious F4 correlate (obvious enough that I'm pretty sure it was intended to be noticed); there was Elastigirl, but there were other stretchy guys before Mr. Fantastic.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-11 12:28 pm (UTC)I didn't even realize the BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS FACT that they're the embodiment of the classic 4 elements until i read Neil Gaiman's "1602".
no subject
Date: 2005-07-10 08:09 pm (UTC)AND LORD THAT CAR CHASE. Gah.
Somehow I managed to read CB's stupid 'I R SCARY' voice as a semi-successful attempt by his character to _appear_ overly intimidating. He didn't really know what he was doing with it, and actually it was pure luck that people were actually so easy to frighten. But... I think maybe I am trying to hard.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-10 08:56 pm (UTC)