Conquer Your Fear

Movie Review
Batman Begins
Directed by: Cristopher Nolan
Starring: Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Katie Holmes

I went to this movie with high expectation. Sure enough, I've been waiting for this movie ever since I first laid my eyes on the trailer. I remembered thinking "Hmm, looks like another Highlander movie" when I saw it. You know, with the mountaineous background, a monastery perched on a hillside and a swordfight on thin ice, I couldn't help but thought that. But when I saw the flying bats, a man hanging upside down wearing a bat costume saying "Here" to his confused 'prey', the title of the movie became pretty much obvious. The trailer suggested a darker, less flashier Batman.

My high expectation also came from the fact that many people gave excellent reviews for this movie in www.imdb.com. They were saying stuff like "a darker, stormier knight," "Everything one could hope for," and other high praises. I know that people could be hyping, being hyperbolic, and the like. But if there's a lot of people saying the same thing, there must be a lot of truth in it, right?

But I have to admit that my high expecation was wrong. The movie was so much better than I had expected.

Young Bruce Wayne was walking down the back alley of an opera house with his parents when suddenly a man came and pointed a gun at them, demanding their money and jewelleries. Due to one thing or another, his father and mother got shot and died at the scene. Ever since then, Bruce had been nursing his anger and wanting to exact revenge to the man who was responsible for his parents' death. Failing to avenge his parents and losing a concrete object for his anger and attention, these were instead directed to an effort in understanding the criminal underworld. He even tried to became a part of it. At one time he ended up in an Asian jail for theft. It was here that a man named Ducard found out about him, and recruited him into a society called The League of Shadow. It was here that Bruce Wayne received his early training to become what he is destined to become. Later on Bruce Wayne would return to his native city of Gotham and begin his effort in restoring order to the crime-ridden city.

One of the outstanding things about this movie is how believable the story is. I must agree with the people who said that everything in this movie could really be explained. Everything that happens; the symbol, the car, the suit, the cape, the dark knight himself, they all have their own reasons. And they are quite believable. In all, Bruce Wayne's transformation from just a kid millionaire inheriting his parents' fortune to a dark knight is pretty much convincing. And, as could be hinted from the title of this review, the overall theme of the story is fear. This movie is about how Bruce Wayne conquered his fear and became, in Ducard's own words, "something else entirely."

And what is more outstanding is that how human the story is. Every character in this movie is very much real. Each has his or her own vulnerabilities. Emotions are pretty much real. And the spotlight, of course, is on Bruce Wayne pretty much for the entire movie. This movie shows a character who is both a real person and also a legend in the making. But this doesn't mean that the other supporting casts didn't do their job well enough in presenting the story.

Christian Bale fits the dual role very well. He was convincing as the playboy millionaire Bruce Wayne, and he was also convincing as the dark knight. Alfred the butler (played by Michael Caine) provided the paternal, caring figure and also some moments of humour during the movie. He was also the one who reminded Bruce of his inheritance and the trusted person to whom Bruce could fall back to. Rachel Dawes (played by Katie Holmes) provided the love interest of the story, and is also one of the key character that keeps the story going. Lucius Fox (played by Morgan Freeman) is the man responsible in providing the gadgets for the dark knight. Ducard (played by Liam Neeson) filled the role of the authoritative tutor for Bruce Wayne, the man who helped the young knight focus his anger and attention. Sergeant Gordon (played by Gary Oldman) played the role of one of the few remaining good cop in the city. His relation with the dark knight begins awkwardly, but towards the end they will have developed a mutual trust for each other. Cillian Murphy as the scarecrow/Dr. Crane was quite creepy, and Tom Wilkinson as Falcone was quite convincing in his role as the mafia head of the criminal underworld. Last but not least, Ken Watanabe's brief role as Ra's Al Gul also deserves mention.

All in all, Cristopher Nolan has assembled a great cast, actors and actresses who played their roles splendidly and successfully, delivering a satisfying and convincing story to the silver screen.

The soundtrack is also of high quality. It successfully created the right mood for each scenes, and it also helped create tension during many of the action scenes. It fits perfectly with the theme of the movie, which is about fear. Even though this movie is not a thriller, but some of the soundtrack did make some peoplealmost jumped in their seats (that would also include me).

Another point worth mentioning is about the 'moments'. You know, those moments when you just sit there and muttered to yourself, "This is so cool." I had many of those. One of them is when Bruce and Lucius were trying out the prototype bat mobile. Another one was when Batman called in his 'reinforcement'. I don't want to spoil this, so reader should see it for themselves. And you should see the 'fear effects'. Way cool.

The only thing that I was a bit disappointed is that the fight scenes' cinematography was not quite exciting. But this is probably due to Nolan's intention of implementing the whole idea of fear. You don't really get to see a 'thug' get beaten up; one minute he was there and suddenly he's gone. Nolan put some thriller movie element in this. But even this is only a minor thing. The movie still blew me away.

To compare this to Tim Burton's Batman, I could only say that both are excellent in their own ways. Burton is Burton, and he has his own style. I like many of his movies. But when it comes to this, I prefer Nolan's. Because his approach is so fresh, so believable, so real. If you really want to see the dark knight's human side, you couldn't get a better view than this.

Lastly, I would like to once again quote Ducard:
"If you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, you become something else entirely."

I just love good quotes. And what's more, I love good movies. Go see this movie. You will regret it if you don't. It may not get movie of the year, but it won my heart.