Film Friday: Christopher Nolan's 'Batman Begins' starring Christian Bale

This week marked the 10th anniversary of the release of Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. Just let that sink in for a second. We've already been living in a full decade where “gritty” and “realistic” are being used to describe superhero movies, which was previously unthinkable before the success of Batman Begins in June 2005. Had the film not become the blockbuster it was, there's a chance that Warner Bros. might have completely given up on Batman as a viable film property.

It is hard to remember, but before Begins came out, Batman was almost left for dead. Joel Schumacher's Batman And Robin effectively killed the franchise with nipples, bad ice puns, Alicia Silverstone and ice skating batsuits in 1997. Warner Bros. looked everywhere for ideas and eventually set their sights on Christopher Nolan in 2003. Nolan had made a splash three years earlier with his insanely fractured movie puzzle Momento and made his Hollywood debut with Warner Bros.' English-language version of Insomnia.

The obvious darkness and inventiveness of Momento made him look like the perfect choice for the studio if they really wanted to go that dark with Batman. And since Schumaker's glitzy camp was such a disaster, the studio must have figured that they might as well try something new.

The end result is a near masterpiece, fully reinventing a character for audiences. There is no confusion between Batman And Robin and Begins. Nolan and writer David S. Goyer brought Batman back to his dark roots, which had always been there since Bob Kane and Bill Finger created the character in 1939. There's a reason why he's called “The Dark Knight” after all. And he's a hero born from a double murder, overseeing a dangerous city with deranged criminals.

However, Goyer and Nolan do take for granted that the audience knows something about Batman's origin. Bruce Wayne's decision to avenge his parent's death is as well-known to the world as what “There's no place like home” means. This frees them up from trying to start the film with the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne. We can learn that through trips inside Bruce's mind during the film. Thankfully, they do get it out of the way in the first 30 minutes of the film, but by then, we've already seen adult Bruce in the middle of nowhere.

Another key to making the film work is the decision not to use the same tired villains. Nolan and Goyer picked Ra’s Al Ghul and Scarecrow, two villains who were never used in the prior four films. This way, they get to add an unknown element to the script for filmgoers. Sure, Batman fans know these villains, as they’ve been around for decades. But they were never as widely known as The Joker.

Nolan also uses other elements from a long list of previously published comics, material largely forgotten in the prior films. There’s hints of The Long Halloween and Batman: Year One left throughout. The script embraces the great stories of the past, while also changing things up. Even though Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes) was created just for the movie, she still feels like an integral part of the Batman story. That in itself is a testament to the world Nolan created, which burst onto the screen with such definition. Take the influences you need and bend them to your will to create your vision.

Nolan’s vision appears to be the star of the film, but someone still has to play Batman. Christian Bale’s growly Batman voice might get tiresome after awhile, but his performance as Bruce Wayne is focused and chilling. He has to get the audience to care about Bruce, so they don’t just sit there waiting for him to put the cowl on. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine add important performances as Lucius Fox and Alfred Pennyworth, respectively. Cillian Murphy is perfectly twisted as Scarecrow and Liam Neeson gives a typically good performance in a mentor role.

And while Bale is the true star, Gary Oldman’s performance as Commissioner Gordon is the best piece of acting in all three Nolan films. He completely inhabits the role in a way only Oldman can. He’s the one guy excited by the fact that Batman is here to help. Gordon is actually a character in these films, unlike the placeholder police officer in the prior movies.

Like other films that are first in a series, it’s clear that Nolan is still learning how to make a big-budget movie. He’d get much better at directing and framing action scenes as the Dark Knight movies went on. But the fact is that Begins still has the tightest story of the three movies, showing an origin story in a way that we hadn’t seen before. Even Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man has more color than Begins. By now, we’re all a little tired of the incredibly gloomy comic book world, which is partly why the Marvel films have been so successful. But Begins is a reminder of why that stuck - because the film itself is, as an actual film and not as a blockbuster product, is actually good.

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