BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
I recently took on the task of watching the entire “Dark Knight” trilogy. Christopher Nolan put out the best series of superhero movies of all time. I don’t think there is anything in their right mind that can argue this. There are plenty of great hero movies out there, but none come close to this level of greatness. I don’t even exaggerate. These movies are modern greatness. They’re not my personal favorites, but to deny that these are some of best movies to come out in the past twenty or so years is just dumb. I’ve said enough about the trilogy and my fan boy love of it. Today I want to take a look at the first and often most overlooked movie of the trilogy, “Batman Begins”. Before Heath Ledger was “The Joker” and before Tom Hardy was “Bane” we got to see Bruce Wayne become Batman. The movie covers the origins in a great way. We see a young Wayne become afraid of bats, lose his parents, and then lose his mind and self. He channeled his focus to basically become a ninja and learn how to fight against crime. One he manned up he went back home to Gotham and slowly and surely pieced together the Batman mythos that we’ve all known and loved forever. The plot of a Batman movie is always “a conflicted rich guy dresses up like a Bat to save his ever-troubled town from over the top bad guys” and there’s nothing wrong with that. The difference here is the story telling, the direction, and the fact that Christian Bale kills it. People seem to be quick to dismiss Bale’s Batman performance. They’ll nag on “the Batman voice”, but that’s all anyone can say. He makes Bruce Wayne an obsessed monster and Batman a deep human. That contrasting conflict is what makes his work so engaging and interesting. The bad guys are more over the top so it’s what people seem to have gotten excited about. What made this movie was Bale’s work. It didn’t hurt that Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman were also in this movie. That’s enough to make any movie cool, but a Batman movie with a great lead actor and amazing director? How could this not be great? One thing I noticed was a little blond boy who actually turned out to be “Prince Joffrey” from “Game of Thrones”. That was surely something I didn’t pick up on before. That’s the cool thing about revisiting older movies. You’ll pick up on the little things like that. I think I’ve seen this movie a few dozen times by now, even more than “The Dark Knight”, but it’s hard to get bored. The thing I think I like most about this movie is the pacing. It’s an action packed movie with tons of cool information and side stories. Some of the stories pan out in the first movie, some in the second, and even some in the third. Regardless, everything that happens starts with this movie. If you’ve seen “The Dark Knight” or “The Dark Knight Rises” and not this movie then you’re doing it all wrong. I totally recommend revisiting it and reabsorbing it knowing what’s to come and how it sets up the best film trilogy since “Back to the Future”. Don’t sleep on this movie. A
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