Batman Begins

      I watched this because I was told to buy it by the same friend who made me play Arkham Asylum (AA, I’ll need to reference this later and so retroactively put this in as I was much too lazy to type out ‘Arkham Asylum’ again). Even though he’s yet to play Dead Space or read ‘Dog Blood’ and ‘Them or Us’ (by David Moody) the second and third part to the ‘Hater’ trilogy – the best horror thriller story I’ve ever read; a terrifying glimpse into societal breakdown and the following broken society.

      But anyway.

      Let’s talk about the movie; which is perhaps... The best movie of all time ever! Flawless in every way I can’t imagine how any movie could ever be better than this. It’s got Batman in it and Qui-Gon Jinn and NINJAS! It has mother fucking ninjas! And a British butler with a British accent – if I had a uterus I’d father a child from every man involved in its production to ensure a new generation of excellent – and beautiful – film makers.

     Sarcasm (and indeed a weird sort of sexism) aside this movie has problems. Pretentious deep and looks-and-sounds-a-lot-like-Keanu-Reeves-but-I’m-assured-he-isn’t problems.

     The first half of this is pretty slow, which isn’t a bad thing in itself (The Beach is positively glacial at times but doesn’t suffer for it) it’s just slowed by trying to cultivate sympathy by showing us Bruce Wayne’s Parents and then killing them and it, actually, sort of being his fault but not really. I mean even at my most causally aware of Batman I knew that Joker killed his parents which ruins the pay off in either ‘Dark Knight’ or the one after (I am under the impression it’s a trilogy).  Granted the arc of him mastering his fear of bats is interesting and a good theme – but then he uses his mastery of fear to “turn fear against those who prey on the fearful” surely making him someone who preys on the newly fearful who in turn will need someone to scare him?

    Enter scarecrow, played by Cillian Murphy, who uses a gas to create fear and mental breakdown in his victims. A truly cruel villain but I learned nothing about him I didn’t get from AA. I get that they’re separate media but they use the same universe and I feel they should bring new interpretations to an old idea. Isn’t that what fan fiction is about? I mean has every Batman thing that’s ever come out just been more of exactly the same? I can’t judge but that’s the impression I’m starting to get.

     Then there’s the time it takes up trying to square away the fact that batman isn’t descending to the criminal’s level. Taking the law into his own hands and battering and terrorising people who – for the most part – seemed to have been bought under the threat of murder if they don’t take the offer. The irony is I’d have been totally behind Bats if I’d known he was enjoying himself. Instead he’s oh so terribly compassionate in that irritating holier-than-thou way that pisses me off to no end.

     It almost convinced me of his ultra-moral stance but right after I was thinking it might not be as much of a contradiction as all that he burns down the League of Shadows’ training facility that he’s been living in for seven years – killing at least three people and severely injuring others all because they asked him to murder a man who killed a whole family for some extra land. You see my problem here? Then at the end he lets a nemesis die in what can only be described as manslaughter with intent. This isn’t a flawed character it’s a broken one, trying to get you to accept two contradictory sides to him as moral. This would be acceptable – if infuriating – if the doublethink was offered to you by the character alone, but it’s the movie.

     Like I said I’d totally be up for the ride if it weren’t for the fact he was so righteous. If Batman dispensed nosebleeds and brain damage with a sense of pride and enjoyment as he cleaned up the city while slowly becoming the evil he set out to deliver justice to, that’d be fine. Instead he does it dispassionately; which isn’t virtuous it’s psychotic.

     It’s a shame really, vigilantism is a romantic idea – it’s what makes Kick Ass such a fucking brilliant movie – and in the context of a city as utterly corrupt as Gotham, one that may actually work.

    Talking of Gotham I was really impressed with how well defined it was – it felt like its own city while also drawing inspiration from cities like Chicago and London; rather than just being a rehashing of New York or being so generic it wasn’t worth caring about. I was more interested in its storey than Bruce’s.

     I suppose you’re meant to take Batman and Bruce as slightly separate characters – they’re never in the same room together – if that’s the case we could probably add Split-Personality to Psycopathy and Messiah Complex in the list of mental disorders this man has. It would also make him repulsive. In one utterly and irredeemably pointless scene he drives up to an expensive restaurant/hotel thing in a tiny little sports car with a random beautiful woman. When the valet opens the door to let her out it’s revealed she was sitting on top of another woman.

     Is this because money is so irresistible to women that they’re willing to cram themselves into an impractically small vehicle with an ugly man who has a train wreck for a mind? Is it because any woman under fourteen stone doesn’t have enough matter to retain a soul? Seconds after this shocking screenshot, the bitches are diving around naked in the fish pond. The manager admittedly is distressed by this, he’s getting complaints, is a public place, he doesn’t need the trouble. So he goes over to them, smiles awkwardly and says “ok ladies you’ve had your fun but I’d appreciate you getting dressed now or we’ll have to ask you to leave.” to the man they came in with and demands he control his women. To which Bruce whips out his penis – wallet! – and buys the hotel so he can change the rules. Fuck him. The most terrible thing about this scene is it was so colossally unimportant.  

     Perhaps my favourite scene in the movie was at Bruce’s birthday party, his house is full of rich people associates he inherited from his parents, I think, and he learns that they’re about to be killed unless he makes them leave. So he insults them, quite thoroughly and with style. I liked the ambiguity here, yes he’s saving them from dying in a fire, but I did get the sense that he kind of meant it. Which does beg the question why he’s bothering with the city at all if both the rich and desperate are toxic to him.

     I’ll give this a ‘worth watching’: the action-ey bits were generally entertaining and towards the end when the Shadow Proclamation turn up there’s a real sense of threat to the whole city, so you do side with Batman if only because he’s not being genocidally righteous.