Batman Begins… But Did He Ever Really End?
A few years
ago when Warner Bros. Animation said they were going to do a Batman series set
in the future, one title was going to be Batman Tomorrow, but they
fortunately changed it to Batman Beyond. It turned out to be terrific and was folded a bit sooner than
expected, though I joked with a friend that maybe they ought to simply call it Batman
Again! In the many failed Batman
theatrical film projects that fell through to revive the character for the 21st
Century, one based on that series was considered. There was also the Batman/Superman film in the World’s Finest
Comics mode that Wolfgang Petersen almost directed. When that fell through, he did Troy
instead, which did not work out.
Finally, with the new animated The Batman starting a new era of
the character up all over again, the new feature film follows the same tact.
The first
Batman appearance was in old Saturday Morning Serials from Columbia Pictures
when they were a B-movie studio. The
character from day one in creator Bob Kane’s comics had a particular cleverness
and charm that no comic series ever recreated or matched. When the Adam West version arrived in the
mid-1960s, the spoofy big hit produced a mixed feature film and three TV
seasons. Frank Miller’s The Dark
Knight Returns was such a landmark and so politically charged, Warner
was determined to do a big dark production meant to cash in and do reversals on
the edgiest parts of that graphic novel classic. For both reasons, the 1989 Tim Burton Batman remains the
most extraordinarily promoted single film release in Hollywood history to this
day.
However,
the legacy of the 1960s show kept shadowing and informing the characters. Batman Returns (1992) was the film
that introduced Dolby Digital theatrically and had some nice design and
production quality the first film did not.
Michelle Pfeiffer replaced Annette Benning at the last minute and was
great, but Burton went with The Penguin despite not even liking the
character. Danny DeVito did his best,
but could not save the film from Burton’s disinterest or the revision of the
character where he suddenly did not want to rob banks. It was an even darker film, so much so that
Joel Schumacher took over for the last two films.
Batman
Forever [1995] was
the underrated and even misconstrued third installment where neon and color
were used with exceptional skill in creating what would have been the beginning
of the next logical step of the original comics, sans Miller & Burton. The Gothic look was there, but it was an
impressive revision. Best of all, Jim
Carrey was decent as The Riddler, but Tommy Lee Jones could have carried the
whole film himself as Two-Face. Val
Kilmer was bashed for taking over the role, but he suggested a better, less
comic direction for the character. Its
heart and timing were more on the mark than anyone either realized or gave it
credit for.
That is why
Batman & Robin [1997] is so puzzling. Thrown together too fast, Chris O’Donnell’s Robin becomes a
caricature, Uma Thurman is underwritten as Poison Ivy, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s
Mr. Freeze is an unnecessary oaf when the character was done so well in the
brilliant Heart Of Ice episode of Batman – The Animated Series,
the Bane character is more like a WWF/WWE reject, Alicia Silverstone’s Batgirl
is related to Alfred The Butler when she was always Commissioner Gordon’s
daughter and the production designed looked more like a Broadway musical.
The result
was that the film killed DC Comics on the big screen for years to come, which
would not have changed no matter what George Clooney did. As all those projects
fell through, rival Marvel Comics had phenomenal luck when Stephen Norrington’s
Blade (1998) did mixed business at the box office, only to be a megahit
on DVD and became a Superhero genre classic.
Suddenly, Marvel broke what seemed like a curse on the big screen and
characters like Spiderman, Daredevil, The X-Men, The Punisher (much, much
better the second time around), The Fantastic Four and even Man-Thing sprung to
life. Sure, Ang Lee’s The Hulk
was a disaster and Elektra a lame spin-off, but every major character in
the Marvel Universe is now optioned for film.
That is
something, since Marvel is on its own, while Warner Bros. has owned DC since
they bought it to do the 1978 Superman film. To start everything all over again is a monumental task,
especially since the DC stable is as huge as Marvel’s. So with Bryan Singer leaving X-Men to
do Superman Reborn for 2006, Warner landed the team of director
Christopher Nolan and cinematographer Wally Pfister to bring back Batman. They got an amazing cast backing Christian
Bale in the title role, including Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Rutger Hauer,
the underrated Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson, Ken Watanabe, Tom Wilkinson, Katie
Holmes and Gary Oldman. It is no
surprise though that David S. Goyer, who wrote all the Blade
screenplays, was hired to write the story for Batman Begins. But was that enough?
Just
about. Great casts have been wasted
before, but they work so well here it is great to watch. As it turns out, the film actually picks up
on the darker Batman from Miller’s books, then goes further in a new
direction. Finally, after 60 years of
film appearances, Batman is finally in a widescreen format. Real Panavision lenses were used here, not
lesser Super 35, for the 2.35 X 1 scope image.
That was a chief complaint of the Burton era, but scope here opens up
the world like never before, the way the 1978 Superman and first Blade
had been shot to begin with.
The film
also has Bruce Wayne start in prison in the Far East, purposely putting himself
in danger to learn how to fight crime.
This is a long early sequence that is well done, but cannot make one
forget the same kind of origins concocted for the 1994 Russell Mulcahy version of
The Shadow with Alec Baldwin that has developed a cult status of
sorts. Bale’s performance as Batman
owes something to Alec Baldwin’s Shadow, though origins reminiscent of what
that 1994 film come up with will not stop a potential Shadow revival as these
sequences very likely would not have happened without that film. As for whether Wayne is or is not a killer
or criminal as Baldwin’s Lamont Cranston was is at the crux of a series of
moral questions being asked by the new film.
There is little mystical about Batman Begins, which offers (not
surprisingly) the toughest fighting sequences since Blade.
Also, the
colorful villains are downplayed for the first time ever, which will win over
audiences. The film runs over two
hours, but squeezes so much storyline and action, that the film never lets up
once the origins are out of the way.
Origins always hold up these films, but this film is different in the
way it goes out of its way to make the past more structured so the
transformation from lost man to Batman is effective. Digital effects are more limited than expected, while the
production design and giant soundstages used for this new world of Batman make
the Burton films look like the 1960s series.
Warner Bros was serious about relaunching Batman and the entire DC
Comics name and in the tradition of Hollywood at its best, got the right
talents and script together, then backed it up with a huge budget where the
money lands up on the screen for a change without being a substitute for story. The screenplay here is co-written by Nolan
and Goyer, a remarkable commercial work that shows an amazing grasp of the
character since his late 1930s introduction, not to mention a real appreciation
of Batman and that world in general.
The film
moves even more away from the comedy of the 1960s series and dark comedy of the
Burton-era features by finally abandoning the familiar surface item that have
always made Batman a character the public identifies with. After all the send-ups and self-send-ups of
the character, the core remains and proves what a great character he has always
been. Bob Kane’s answer to The Shadow
has mostly overshadowed its famous predecessor since the 1960s, but has only
survived by becoming darker and this film is smarter than any of the previous incarnations,
with the darkness going beyond the visuals that Burton eventually went
overboard on without backing it up the way this film finally does. A problem with the later Burton/Batman
sequels was the feeling the audience was not being taken seriously or even
respected, something this film more than rectifies.
At the two
screenings I attended, this was the thing that most impressed and shocked the
audience. In a sea of terrible and
terribly stupid commercial films, Batman Begins is a rebirth of the
character that endures the way James Bond was rejuvenated by For Your Eyes
Only or when the first Charlie’s Angels feature film turned out to
have so much energy and fun with its subject.
Too bad the Charlie’s Angels – Full Throttle sequel turned out to
be worse than Batman & Robin and as bad as everyone though the first
film would be, but Batman Begins is that increasingly rare commercial
sequel/remake done right. This is
because the creators were serious about making a film they would pay to see and
the studio was smart enough to back it financially. Only those sentimental for the comedy and bright colors of the
earlier versions will be disappointed.
So, to the
original question, did Batman ever go away?
Of course not, as no matter what the naysayers and ignorant think or
wish, the foundation Bob Kane built beginning in the 1930s was built
right. The appeal of a member of the
rich and respectable elite taking the hugest risks with both his money as one
person and his life as an alter ego is even reflected by the likes of Richard
Branson today. That is even if he is
not a member of The Justice League or wearing costumes secretly to get things
done. More than any other hero in
fiction history, including the wealthy Lamont Cranston and his alter ego The
Shadow, Batman reflects the innovative and progressive spirit of everything
good the United States is supposed to stand for. This film’s arrival and a film of this particular quality
reflecting that could not have come at a more interesting time, as the country
enters the 21st Century as a neo-Vietnam and crazy Middle Eastern
conflict mix with universally unhappy results.
This time, it will not be a passive, Pop Art, easy-to-laugh-off Batman
that meets these events. The commercial
success of this film will be one for the books, but the mostly positive
critics’ response in what is a very rare case of being mutually on the
money. It reflects the America and
world people want to work and fight for, especially at a time when people feel
like their wishes are being ignored. It
just goes to show you that there is nothing like a new beginning.
This essay
was the home page letter for Mid-to-Late June 2005
