Movie Spoiler BATMAN BEGINS (2005) - after review

Director Chris Nolan began working on Batman Begins five years after Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin let out a big fart at the box-office.  The franchise was run to the ground and the timing was right to reinvigorate the superhero for a new audience.  Bryan Singer's first X-Men movie had already hit theaters two years previously (with the second one almost ready to be released) and Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man was on everyone's mind.  The bar had been raised and Nolan rose to the challenge of telling an origin's story that would literally reboot the Batman brand from scratch, set in a reality that could actually exist in the real world.  Rather than work within the theatrics of the previous films or place mood at the top of his list of objectives, Nolan used David Goyer's script (based on several more recent literary incarnations of the crimefighter) to tell a story that would offer audiences something they had never seen before and create a new kind of comic-book movie that would be both mature and admirable in its storytelling.  And, Nolan achieved exactly what he set out to do in the first installment of his pending trilogy.  His Batman is about the how and why it ever came into existence.  Forlorn from losing his family tragically as a boy, after training in eastern Asian fighting and philosophy, the billionaire finds purpose in using his money to stand as an example for humanity and fight against the ills of his adored Gotham City.  Nolan believably captured how this Batman could have actually happened in this day and age and created a solid foundation for the text two films that would follow.

The Movie Spoiler
While playing in the yard with his friend Rachel Dawes (Emma Lockhart), Bruce Wayne (Gus Lewis) falls down a hole.  He lands with little injury, but a colony of bats quickly swarm around him and startle as well as emotionally scar the young lad.  The scene turns out to be a flashback to his youth, as the grownup Bruce (professional thespian Christian Bale) wakes up in a Himalayan cell.  During lunch at the Bhutan prison, an immate picks a fight with Bruce, who ends up kicking his ass, as well as fending off several others.  Guards fire guns and haul Bruce off.  Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) appears interested in training the wayward Wayne to be something greater than himself, with the intent of having him join his League of Shadows.  After being dumped off the side of a road, Bruce climbs a mountain to the home of Ra's Al Ghul (for all intents and purposes, at this point, Ken Watanabe).  He begins to spar with the wisdom-dispensing Ducard, “To manipulate the fears of others, you must first master your own.”  Commence waling on Bruce, ending the assault in asking him what he fears most.  Flashback to Bruce's father Thomas Wayne (Linus Roache) consoling his son after retrieving him from the bat hole.  Later, Bruce takes the train with his parents to the opera.  During the performance, he gets scared and the family leaves.  Consequently, his parents are robbed and killed.  At the police station, Officer Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) comforts him.  Alfred (Michael Caine), the butler (among his many other talents and duties), accompanies him to the funeral.   

Back to present day, Bruce confides in Ducard, “My anger outweighs my guilt.”  His teacher supplies various pieces of knowledge, “I will teach you how to confront it, face the truth ... Danger understands that invisibility is a matter of patience and agility ... Criminals thrive on the indulgences of society’s understanding.”  The trainer also shares personal details about his life over a campfire and asks him why he didn’t avenge his parent’s death. 

Bruce returns to Wayne Manor.  There, he discusses the pending hearing of Joe Chill (Richard Brake), the man who killed his parents, with the grownup Rachel (Katie Holmes).  She works for the DA office, who plans on early release in exchange for information Chill has on mafioso Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson).  Afterwards, a woman kills Chill Jack Ruby-style.  While driving with Rachel, he suggests that Chill’s death was justice.  Offended, she takes a detour through skid row to show Bruce that nailing a much bigger criminal for the greater good is worth letting someone like Chill go.  She believes Bruce has personalized Chill's crimes to the point that Bruce can't weigh the variables in the matter objectively.  “As long as [Falcone] keeps the bad people rich and the good people scared, no one will touch him … what chance does Gotham have when good people do nothing?”  Bruce produces a pistol and she slaps him for having been willing to throw his life away for revenge.  Afterwards, he throws the weapon into the harbor.  He visits Falcone, whose establishment is loaded with public officials in his back pocket.  He taunts Bruce with his parent’s deaths and has his goons throw him out of the club.  Outside, Bruce switches jackets with a transient to disguise himself.  

We learn how Bruce ended up in the penitentiary before he met Ducard.  A concealed Ducard tries to locate Bruce in a roomful of masked ninjas.  Bruce is able to outsmart Ducard and Al Ghul holds a modest ceremony to induct him into the League of Shadows, but Bruce refuses to execute a criminal as part of the initiation.  Instead, he attacks everyone and sets the building on fire, carrying out Ducard’s injured body with him.  The compound blows up sending the two sailing down the edge of a cliff.  Bruce saves him again in a scene that would be recreated in Neeson’s The Grey years later.  Back in his home country, Bruce begins discussing his idea of fighting crime under an alias.  “People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy … as a symbol, I can be incorruptible.”  Alfred explains during his seven-year absence, that Earle (Rutger Hauer), who runs Wayne Enterprises, had Bruce declared deceased.

In court, Dr. Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy) testifies on behalf of one of Falcone’s thugs and Rachel calls him out on it.  Cole Finch (the deceased Larry Holden) pulls Rachel aside to cool her jets.  A lost bat caught inside Wayne Manor prompts Bruce to explore the hole he fell into as a child. Falcone and Crane meet. The latter no longer wants to work with Falcone, as his boss is coming back to town and he doesn’t want his venture endangered by the snooping Rachel. Bruce enters a meeting held by Earle and attended by George Fredericks (John Nolan). He expresses to Earle that he’s interested in working in Applied Sciences, a little-used department run by Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman). Rachel is surprised to learn from Finch that Bruce is back. Fox shows Bruce prototypes of various weaponry for defense contracts developed over the years and lends him some equipment he uses to spelunk in the bat cave. Bruce starts planning and buying additional materials. Gordon meets with corrupt Detective Flass (Mark Boone Junior).

Bruce holds Gordon at gunpoint and presses him for information on Falcone’s ability to buy off the town to continue his drug ring.  Gordon shares with him that the judge and DA office are in on it.  Bruce, dressed in a protective suit, uses his spelunking kills to escape.  At his office, Fox shows him a new kind of technologically advanced fabric you can run a current through.  He also takes him for a ride in a nifty vehicle referred to as the Tumbler.  Bruce spies on a conversation between Falcone and Flass, who brings up the price on Rachel’s head.  Bruce works on various accruements for his uniform. 

Flass and Falcone go to the dock for a drug shipment, where Flass learns that the shipments come in the form of drug-stuffed bears and rabbits; the former goes to the dealers and the latter goes to “men in the Narrows,” which involves Crane's psychological experiments.  The shipment is interrupted by Bruce, who, after taking down all the thugs, crashes into Falcone’s limo, head-butts him, informing him, “I’m Batman.”  He then saves Rachel from two attackers and gives her photos to help her weed out the scum from the justice department.  At the drug bust, Gordon shows up.  Falcone’s body is tied to a huge signal, projecting his image into the sky.  Mayor Loeb (Colin McFarlane) is displeased.  Rachel shares the development from the previous night with Finch.  Alfred counsels Bruce to come up with a backstory for his likely continuing injuries.  A Wayne employee informs Earle that a coastguard had picked up an abandoned cargo ship that was carrying a microwave emitter weapon.  Via flashbacks, the weapon is used to target an enemy’s water supply.  At a hotel restaurant, Bruce has a little fun with two ladies (Flavia Masetto, Emily Steven-Daly ) while attending a business meeting.  One of the guests believes Batman deserves a medal.  Earle comments, “And a straitjacket to pin it on.”  Bruce bumps into Rachel, who judges him, with the irony being lost on her, “It’s not who you are underneath, it’s what you do that defines you.”  Crane visits Falcone in prison.  Falcone threatens to rat him out about his involvement in the drug deals, as well as his professional activity, unless Crane cuts him in on a big deal that is about to go down.  The doctor places a burlap bag over his head, and, in a move that will contribute to his status as The Scarecrow, administers a gas which sends Crane into mental breakdown.

Batman pays Gordon a surprise visit letting him know that Flass knows where the other half of drugs go.  He locates the crook and interrogates him.  Finch investigates the second shipment, and his inquiry gets him killed.  The boy who plays blond twit Joffrey Baratheon on Game of Thrones (Irish Jack Gleeson) spots Batman and he throws the mesmerized kid a trinket.  In an apartment filled with the stuffed bunnies, Crane orders his men to torch the place. Batman begins his attack, but Crane breaks out his Scarecrow persona and gases Batman, causing him to hallucinate and experience flashbacks to his parent’s murder.  He sets him on fire and Batman falls several stories.  He recovers enough to call Alfred, who rescues him and nurses him back to health.  Alfred phones Fox, who creates an antidote. Rachel visits and receives a call that Falcone has been moved to Arkham Asylum in the Narrows. Bruce enters the Bat Cave and prepares.  Earle approaches Fox about getting information on the microwave emitter and tells him his days are numbered.  At Arkham, Rachel unsuccessfully calls Crane on his shit and then inquires about Falcone’s condition, who has been complaining of seeing visions of a scarecrow.  Rachel demands her own psychiatrist evaluate Falcone and Crane escorts her to the drug production room within the asylum.  She tries to escape, but he gasses and kidnaps her.  Crane asks one of his men to call the police before Batman attacks everyone.  Batman gasses Crane, who drops Ra’s Al Ghul’s name.  The police arrives with Gordon and Flass.  Batman enlists Gordon’s help in getting Rachel the antidote and uses a colony of bats to descend upon the police as a distraction.  Batman escapes with Rachel over the Franklin-Orleans Street Bridge (not to be confused with the LaSalle Street Bridge used in Road to Perdition) and a high-speed chase ensues.  Batman loses the police and makes it to the Batcave to administer the antidote to Rachel.  Gordon discovers Gotham’s water supply has been tainted.  Batman informs Rachel that Crane is a pawn and gives her two antidotes to give to Gordon (one for Gordon and one to be made for mass production).

Alfred takes Bruce to task for the high-speed chase, as he gets ready for a birthday party thrown in his honor. Earle informs Bruce that the company going public has been a hit. Gordon interrogates Crane. Fox puts things together with Bruce and realizes that the stolen microwave emitter will be used to administer the poison through the water supply. Bruce asks him to produce the antidote on a massive scale. Ducard appears at the party and reveals himself as Ra’s Al Ghul. Bruce puts on a drunken scene to encourage everyone to leave in order to save their lives. It turns out that Crane has been getting his drugs through Ra’s Al Ghul, who plans to “watch Gotham tear itself apart through fear.” Arkham Asylum opens its doors freeing its residents. He claims that the League of Shadows is responsible for the Fall of Rome and The Black Plague. Crane’s people save him. Al Ghul’s men begin to set Bruce Manor on fire and he knocks the billionaire unconscious. Gordon tries to galvanize Flass into saving the city. Alfred saves Bruce get again. Chaos permeates Gotham. Rachel transports the antidotes to Gordon. She consoles the Game of Thrones boy who has just been threatened by one of Al Ghul’s men. The microwave transmitter arrives.  They start spreading the gas throughout the city. Gordon knocks out Flass who had pulled a gun on two people under the effects of the hallucinogen. Gordon calls the major for backup, but they are all on the island by Arkham Asylum. The Scarecrow rides passed Rachel on a horse, with gas emanating everywhere around him, looking like he just arrived from Sleep Hollow. Batman enlists Gordon’s help into stopping Al Ghul from sending the microwave transmitter on a train to spread the gas around greater Gotham.

Rachel tazes Scarecrow. Batman stops Arkham residents from attacking Rachel and the boy. He clues her in about his identity by gently throwing her words from the party back at her. Batman engages in a fight with four of Al Ghul’s men. He then must escape a throng of people. Batman attacks Al Ghul on the train. Gordon manages to destroy part of the train tracks with guns on the Batmobile. The train crashes with only Al Ghul on board. Fox, who now has Earle’s position at Wayne Enterprises, holds a meeting. The newspapers misreport that Bruce intentionally burned down his own home. Bruce informs Earle that he bought his company back under his nose and then seals up the hole in the backyard. Rachel and Bruce reconcile and kiss. He finds a burnt stethoscope his father gave him.  Alfred and Bruce discuss rebuilding Wayne Manor. Now lieutenant Gordon shows Batman the Bat signal that was just built. They discuss how to beat the bad guys and Gordon hands him the calling card of The Joker. To be continued in Nolan's second installment ...