I went to go see Batman Begins last night and I absolutely loved it. I had high expectations going in, because I love the Batman character--he's my favorite superhero by far. I think its mostly because he has no special powers. It kind of gives me hope for my own future superhero potential. I don't need to concern myself with getting dropped in a vat of toxic waste or something to become a superhero. All I need is about $5 billion dollars. Perhaps I should leave a podcast pitch for Fred, although I think our fund is too small to make me Batman.
Well, the movie by far surpassed my expectations.
Batman Begins really rescues the franchise from the awful campiness that George Clooney, Chris O'Donnell, and the worst villians ever--the sexy but ridiculous Uma Thurman and played out Ahh-nold, left us off with. Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Katie Holmes all represent serious upgrades over previous supporting casts, with the exception being Jack Nicolson's portrayal of the Joker. I loved the original Batman--the lone, mysterious Dark Knight. Michael Keaton was by far the best one and Tim Burton's original really captured the mood perfectly. The whole idea of Robin is just annoying and I never figured out why the story needed him, but whatever.
This movie is way different. Its not a "superhero" movie. Its an actual movie that explores real charactors. We don't even see Batman until the second half of the movie. The story has a lot of depth to it, and halfway through it, I thought to myself, "Wow, there really covering a lot of bases here, but it doesn't seem like its overly long or complicated." Chris Nolan has done this twice before--telling a complicated story where you sort of know where its going, while maintaining great pace and viewer interest--in Momento and Insomnia. To have these three movies under his belt at 35 its really impressive.
Definate candidate for my top 50 list... we'll see when we get closer to the end. I might have even liked it better than the original.