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Genius of mystery and intrigue
Christopher Nolan (MEMENTO, FOLLOWING, INSOMNIA) helms this prequel to
the Batman films based on the DC Comics series, explaining how Bruce
Wayne (Christian Bale)--the billionaire prince of Gotham whose parents
were killed in an alleyway mugging--transformed into the crime-fighting
superhero. With flashbacks to his privileged childhood, young Master
Wayne, as he is called by the butler Alfred (Michael Caine), develops a
terrible fear of bats when he falls through the backyard garden into a
hidden cave. As a young adult, Wayne lives among the League of Shadows, a
martial arts group in the mountains of Asia. His leaders Ra's al Ghul
(Ken Watanabe) and Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) teach him strength,
endurance, and--unfortunately--evil, against which he naturally rebels.
Returning to Gotham and reinstating himself as a dapper socialite and
the rightful heir to his parents' enterprise, Wayne quickly devises his
secret identity, commanding help from the gadgetry expert Lucius Fox
(Morgan Freeman). With one eye on his childhood playmate Rachel (Katie
Holmes)--now a beautiful woman and dedicated lawyer--and the other on
his mission to save Gotham from criminal corruption, Batman makes his
fledgling debut. But when the blue-blooded mastermind Dr. Crane (Cillian
Murphy)--who steals every scene with chilling menace--taints the water
system with a hallucinatory substance, Batman realizes he has met his
first true opponent. An attitude of grave seriousness elevates BATMAN
BEGINS above more cartoony Batman movies, as Nolan crafts a dark drama
that thrives on sci-fi intrigue. Bale strides into the role with grace,
adding refinement that is seldom seen in action-oriented films. And
while the action scenes explode with high-tech glitz and fast-moving
thrills, they are evenly placed among sequences of plot and character
development, making for a complex and satisfying viewing experience.
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