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| Batman Begins | 
| Category: Movie
This item is no longer available
Avg. Customer Rating:  1245 reviews
Sales Rank: 4362
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: Video On Demand
Running Time: 141 minutes
ASIN: B0014D6PCO
Theatrical Release Date: June 15, 2005
Release Date: November 7, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
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| Customer Reviews:
 Better than the last two movies. June 19, 2005
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Fantastic come back for the film series with Christian Bale as the Cape Crusader starting his war on crime. Christopher Nolan recreates the series with a dark mood that almost rivals Tim Burton's first two Batman movies but he does lack the flare and the bravado that Burton brought to those films as well as the underlining sense of evil that Gotham had in it's core. Nolan meanwhile does give a sense of realism to the madness of the city and it's hero and that's where the movie big surprise is. I think that this is a great come back for the series and I hope there will be a sequel to it to see where Batman goes from there.
 Brilliantly Dismal Batman Faces Fears... June 19, 2005
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Fear comes crawling on occasion to all people, the question is how do they respond to this frightening sensation. Many try to live with their internal fears without ever trying to deal with them, but once and in a while some decide to look fear in the eyes. Some of these fears are phobias strong enough to paralyze the individual's existence, which could possibly be very dangerous if a situation would present itself where the stimuli that trigger the phobia would appear in an untimely moment. These stimuli that cause fear could be things such as heights, spiders, or small spaces, yet they all have one thing in common. They all induce irrational levels of fear. In Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has such a phobia and how he acquires this phobia emerges in the opening of the film through a traumatic childhood experience.
The story opens with a dream sequence where Bruce is playing, as a child, in their gigantic garden with Rachel Dawes, as he for the first time encounters bats through a traumatic experience. When Bruce wakes up he is a captive of an Asian prison, seemingly Chinese, but this is not confirmed. He is in prison due to his personal journey to gain wisdom about the nature of evil. It also appears that he has enemies whereever he wanders, as convicts are willing to end his life whenever opportunity presents itself. As a consequence, the prison guards throw him into solitary confinement where a shadowy man, Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson), offers him the opportunity to fight evil in a more productive manner. However, Bruce must follow the instructions of Ducard and undergo rigorous training where he must face his personal fears.
Batman Begins opens with a fragmented storyline, which helps induce the confusion that Bruce might be feeling while trying to understand himself and how he should approach evil. In this beginning, Bruce's past history runs before the audience's eyes through a number of interjecting flashbacks that present how he got to the situation where he gains the skills and wisdom necessary to battle evil. Much of his wisdom and skill comes from intense training in ninjutsu and other martial arts while he is aptly ingesting all of the physical, spiritual, and philosophical parts of his training. Intermittently throughout the training, scenes from his past emerge to increase an understanding of why he desires to combat evil. The root of his desire stems from a harrowing childhood memory where his mother and father were brutally gunned down in his presence after having left an opera performance early due to fear experienced during the opera.
The scene leading up to the murder of his parents continues to display director Christopher Nolan's attention for detail, as he also plays with the analogous notion that fear can prevent people from fulfilling their destinies. The scene also illustrates the internalized guilt that Bruce possesses due to his fears that frequently haunt his dreams with his personal nightmarish nemesis - the bat. However, Ducard teaches him that in order to fully be prepared to face his destiny he must conquer over his own fears. This lengthy beginning is essential in order for the audience to build a complete understanding of Bruce's persona, as he struggles to understand himself within a diverse and unjust world. Nonetheless, Nolan accomplishes to keep the audience's attention with his hypnotic storytelling that has splashes of wit and insightfulness.
Eventually, Bruce finishes his education with Ducard, but finds himself at a crossroads where his personal philosophy opposes Ducard's organizations. This leads him to take his own path, a narrow path, where he must struggle to be on the right side of justice. In addition, when he returns home to Gotham City he discovers that he has been declared dead, as he has been gone for more than seven years. Through the help of his family butler, Alfred (Michael Caine), he returns home to begin work in a small department of his company that is run by Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) from where he finds several of his fantastic Batman toys while he is trying to find a fitting symbol for his new alter ego. After much thought, Bruce settles for the name - Batman.
During Bruce's long absence from Gotham City, the city has disintegrated from rampant crime while corruption is reaching its peak. The man behind the scenes seems to be the mobster Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson) who has a finger in everything within the city, but he is also cooperating with Dr. Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy), a psychiatrist, that gets off all of Falcone's thugs with the plea of insanity. The police do not do much, as most of them are in the pocket of Falcone. One of the few that seems to pursue the criminals is the attorney Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes), but without much luck. Amidst this vile corruption Batman begins to restore peace and order within the city with his tough approach. However, there seems to be something much bigger brewing underneath the surface of the city and Batman might be what Gotham City needs to save them.
Batman Begins provides an authentic image of Batman's true dark character, as he struggles with what is right and wrong. Through this personal struggle of Batman, Nolan does a wonderful job in depicting a genuine society where things are not black and white, as he brings the film into the gray zone where nothing is completely clear. This ambiguousness is vital, as it also heavily deals with the emotion fear. Fear is crucial for survival as people can sense dangers when facing fears, but if neglected it could lead to worse sorrow. The camerawork and the darkness in the film enhances the element of fear in a brilliant manner. There is a scene where the bats seem to merge with Batman, which symbolically produces the notion that fear is an essential part of our own existence and cannot be neglected. When the darkness of the viewing room goes into hiding from the light and the end credits fade away Batman Begins continues to expand beyond any of its predecessors with a thoughtful and innovative cinematic experience not soon forgotten.
 Not so great... June 19, 2005
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
This movie isn't as great as I'd heard it was, but it was pretty good. Bruce Wayne's backstory following his parents' murder is all more interesting and emotionally moving than what takes place after he actually becomes Batman. After that, it lapses into formulaic action movie chiches with yet another "big machine which must be stopped or we're all doomed".Bale spits and hisses his lines as Batman a bit too intensely, and his scowling lip contortions remind me of Sly in Judge Dredd. He's not that great a Batman, in my opinion. Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon, though, is picture perfect. Gordon has up till now pretty much been potrayed as a doofus on film, and Oldman looks and acts the way Gordon should. Michael Caine is perfect as Alfred, but that's no surprise. The villians were a tad weak, I thought. Not that I wanna see more of the over, over the top camp of the bad guys from the previous 4 movies, but Al Ghul and the Scarecrow aren't particularly interesting to me as potrayed here.Oh, well, I know alot of people aren't going to agree with this review, as this movie was being hailed as Batman's return to greatness long before it even came out. That's fine. It just didn't knock me on my can, and that's just how it is. Still, it's a marked improvement (to say the least) over the direction the Burton/Schumacher Bat-films eventually took, and I guess it will be forever revered for that reason alone.But to me, it's just another Batman movie, with nothing too stupid, and nothing particularly mind-blowing. With 7 big screen feature films under his utility belt (including Adam West, and Mask of the Phantasm), I feel the cinematic potential of Batman has yet to be fully exploited.Maybe next time.
Batman Should End June 18, 2005
2 out of 13 found this review helpful
This better be the last Batman movie they ever make. Their have already been four Batman movies and now a fifth on when will Hollywood make something orginal. To me Batman is going out of style and nobody watches the cartoon show on the WB. Morgan Freeman is in this movie I think he is good actor. I saw previews advertised on TV it looks good but enough. A horses breathes fire in theis movie.
"Batman Begins" is impressive! June 18, 2005
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
"Batman Begins" is impressive! Christian Bale is excellent as Bruce Wayne / Batman. Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman led a solid supporting cast that has Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, and Ken Watanabe in it. Christopher Nolan's directing is impressive. The screenplay by Nolan and David S. Goyer (who also wrote the Blade Movies) and the story by Goyer is brilliant. The music by James Newton Howard & Hans Zimmer is very impressive. The cinematography (Oscar nominated) by Wally Pfister is excellent. The film editing by Lee Smith is excellent. The casting by John Papsidera & Lucinda Syson is excellent. The production design by Nathan Crowley is very impressive. The art direction by Peter Francis, Stuart Kearns, Paul Kirby, Simon Lamont, Steven Lawrence, David Lee, Patrick Lumb, Shane Valentino, Su Whitaker is very impressive. The set decoration by Paki Smith is very impressive. The costume design by Lindy Hemming is very impressive. This is one of the year's best and one of the best comic book movies in recent history since "Spider-Man 2" (2004).
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