Batman Begins

[Nate Ford]

well i don't know this goyer dude's work, but i know nolan's. and someone who wrote some dialogue is a hack. and i don't think nolan's a hack. now, i don't know that much about the scripting of this flick. but i know that at this budget, all sorts of dudes get brought in to do "polishes" who might not necessarily even get any credit. whether the following crap dialogue is goyer's work or the work of some ghost-hack, it is certainly crap.

(all in reference to the batmobile:)
it's a black... tank
i gotta get me one of those...
do you drive stick?

soooo lame. i mean, we know it's cool. it's the batmobile. do we need the lame sub-arnold grade wisecracks? but the worst chunk of dialogue is near the end and the entire diabolical plan has been revealed in every detail. the train is heading towards its destination. they cut to the old dude who works at the train station or water factory or whatever, and he's like "they're gonna drive the train over the main water-line and turn on the microwave device to turn all of the water into steam!!!," (Or something along those lines.) holy exposition, batman!!! you just said exactly what we've been finding out for the last 10 minutes. if you're going ot have such clumsy, blatant exposition, it should at least be telling us something that we wouldn't know otherwise. i mean, smart people could see it coming once they tell you that the drug has to be inhaled, what with the missing water-vaporizing device, and all. but then m freeman tells batman flat out- if they wanted to deliver the poison to the whole city of gotham then they'd need to do it with a water-vaporizing machine, which was just stolen from wayne enterprises. i mean, at this point, even the sub-morons in the back row who laughed at the "i gotta get me one of those" lines understand what obi-wan is trying to do. but still, you put in the crusty old guy and have him spell it out once more? this can't be the work of the guy who made "momento."

however, one of the stupid little one-liners was actually really good: "what's the matter? don't they like falafel?" otherwise, the dialogue was on a par with every other crap superhero movie. don't even get me started on all that "become your fear" crap. poor liam neeson is gonna get himself pigeonholed as a dude who plays 3-word exotic name guys that always spout quasi-philosophical bullshit.

oh yeah, and how about lumping all of asia into one big country, where nepalese sherpas, shaw-bros style kung-fu masters, and ninjas all coexist?

[Marco Leavitt]

I liked the falafel line too. I agree with you about the dialog. In some parts, it was downright Lucas-esque. Funny, despite all the bad things I have to say about this movie, why did I like it so much?

[Richard Alvarez]

Schtick lines, convoluted dialogue, cheezy choreography... BUT. As a sample of a particular GENRE (comic/action films) I think it excelled. Most of those elements are part of the formula, so I'll give them a pass. I think it was the develpment of the backstory, and a GREAT supporting cast that sticks with me. Michael Caine and Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and even Liam Neeson in what is now his standard "Mentor" role. (I've got to go see him in Kensey)

[Dylan Couper]

I too have a bunch of bad things to say about this movie, but strangely when I came out of watching it, the first thing out of my mouth was "That kicked f--king ass!!!" so I'll have to stick with that. :)

[Barry Gribble]

Richard,

Certainly schtick lines are part of the genre, and when they appear in your average genre movie they are a fine part of the icing on the cake. My only problem with them in this movie was that at its heart this movie wanted to be something else, and it was evident that these lines were thrown in by some outside this-must-be-a-summer-movie-so-it-needs-these-lines force and therefore didn't flow for me.

Overall I was able to ignore them because the rest of the movie did kick...

[Laurence Maher]

The flick was undoubtedly the best of the Batman movies for this reason/ it's the only one that actually focused on . . . the hero, who happens to be . . . Batman. The origin was not exact from the comic book, but was similar enough to satisfy fans, the action sequences were "ghost out of nowhere-like", which is the way it's done in the comics. Batman was a real character with a character arc in this, not a pawn. Played down the love interest (good thing). Tried to make a real story this time (good). Great acting for the most part (good) . . .

. . . and then there was Commisioner Robin, driving the techno-complicated Batmobile and learning how to fire it's weapons and help save the day inside of a 5 minute period . . . bad.

. . . one-liners . . . bad . . .

. . . didn't make it clear about who Ra Sa Goul really was . . . was it Liam Niessen or was Ken Watanabe changing bodies into a younger version of himself, or . . . not clear . . . bad.

Scarecrow overall good. Batmobile wrecking every superhighway in existence was a bit overdone.

Alfred was good.

Lucous Fox good.

Stupid kiss at end was unneccessary.

How many times are the villians going to wreck Wayne manner or Batman's gadgets in some form . . . Batman in the comic is way too formitable for that to even come close to happening.

Almost suffered from the "too many villians for one movie" syndrome like the other batmans, but pulled out of it I think.

But overall, a far, far, FAR cry better than Edward Scissorbatman, which was nothing more than a multi-million Tim Burton studio fart, and I'd mention the Schumacher Batman's, but I really don't think they deserve to even make it into the conversation.

Pretty easy to see where the artists were allowed to excel, and then where the studios instisted on their usual dumb crap. Pretty much what I expected to see . . . some really good stuff, but could have been better.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Saw the movie tonight, and I'm pretty dissapointed.
Not very original or interesting, and it was good they made a good moral about the difference between justice and revenge. Nice angle, but hmm... I had very much the feeling of: I have seen this already a thousand times, the cliché summer blockbuster.
I didn't found the action scenes to be very exiting, and I thought the dramatic scenes often weren't deep enough. If you compare it with Memento, which I know isn't a smart thing to do, but still...

War of the Worlds is one too, Sin City too, but they have something very visual that makes them something distinct, and I didn't think Batman had it.

I still prefer the Burton movies. They were dark fairytales, and somehow that fitted the batman character.
Love Batman Returns still the most.
With those crazy images of the pinguins diving in the water with rockets on their backs, completely absurd, but very much more original and visceral.

That's only my opinion, though...

[Spike Spiegel]

i think, despite of bad fighting cutscenes, and bad dialogue, and poor casting (Katie Holmes), everyone still liked the movie because it did so much justice to the Batman character... Especially when you compare it to the previous POS with a cheesy git like George Clooney smiling like a jackarse and going, "Hi , i'm Batman".. Its a relief for the fans to see something that stuck to the origin of the Batman character.

[Rob Lohman]

I finally saw it on IMAX. The screen wasn't that huge, but it did look more
impressive for some reason (the larger film size probably helped a lot in
clarity as well). The thing that was overwhelming was the audio in that
theater. We where completely BLOWN away. When the gun sounds that
kills his parents I could literally "feel" it. What a great sound. I'm spoiled now.

I really really enjoyed the movie as well. A much more mature Batman, better
than any of the other movies. Much more dark. Great cinematography as
well, I really liked how certain things looked.

I may go see it again at that theater :)

[Yi Fong Yu]

yeah i saw attack of the clones in IMAX. you can really appreciate 12,000 watts of surround sound =). IMAX=awesome... 2bad the aspect ratio is screwed up for the widescreen purists =). i still wouldn't have minded taking a cropped version.

[Joshua Starnes]

Originally Posted by Yi Fong Yu

yeah i saw attack of the clones in IMAX. you can really appreciate 12,000 watts of surround sound =). IMAX=awesome... 2bad the aspect ratio is screwed up for the widescreen purists =). i still wouldn't have minded taking a cropped version.

The IMAX screen I saw Batman on, it was projected at it's correct aspect ratio, which meant that it didn't entirely fill the whole screen - there were bars on top and bottom - but when the screens 4 stories tall I'm not complaining. Having seen it already on the regular screen, the IMAX process really does bring a new depth and clarity to the picture. Even the often jumbled fight scenes were easier to follow.

I wish they'd do Revenge of the Sith in IMAX. The Attack of the Clones IMAX was one of the best I've ever seen or felt (I could actually feel the lightsabers in my gut from the power of the bass in that theater) as a pure viewing experience.

Too bad only Warner Bros. is willing to go that route right now. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is on IMAX next week, and the next Harry Potter movie will be in the fall. But what I wouldn't give to see King Kong on IMAX.

[Yi Fong Yu]

really?!?!?!!??! whoa, that's awesome... i gotta sheck it out then =). correct aspect=awesome.

[Yi Fong Yu]

okay, just saw batman yesterday. imho, it was unsurprising. i still like burton's batman better. burton was more "theatrical" =).

there is a lack of surprise because we know Bale is going to be batman and he has to go through the motions of becoming one. while we saw glimpses of his parents and his relationship with his father, we never really go deep. when his parents died, i didn't feel sad nor terror. it was just that it happened and everyone kept saying it's OK... when it's not. if they wanted to do it, why not make everyone in the cinema cry the way Return of the King did? i guess that's part of a comic book film genre's limitations. even spiderman had a hard time convincing people to cry in the cinema.

i suppose, also, that may have been on the part warner brothers saying WE GOTTA HAVE ACTION. it's almost like 2 films melded into one. one a character piece like insomnia/memento that never really got its comeuppance, the other an action that never spread its wings either. so we're left with story different movies trying to be one.

as others pointed out there was also 2many branching off into 2many storylines of 2many villains. it's almost like warner brothers gave nolan/goyer a list and they had to fulfill the hit list. i'm reminded of rick berman giving ron moore and branon braga a checklist of things that needed to be in star trek generations. it's ridiculous to base a film that is supposed to be organic in nature on a checklist of "must haves".

that's why this reboot doesn't work (imho). i still liked the animated series in the early 90s. i'm checking those DVDs out from netflix soon. all 85 episodes are currently out on DVD =). also, the mask of phantasm is still a great film! if they actually made THAT a live action, it still would have been better than batman begins. i think they have to get paul dino to write a batman film and directed by someone new to the film in general but loves comic books. that's a reboot i'd like to see.

the cast was pretty good but i disliked ken watanabe playing a villain furthering stereotypes of asians as villains with bad accents. why couldn't he have gotten a better part elsewhere? plus, he dies, which is another asian villain character stereotype. there's just so many things wrong about that. why does it keep happening?

BTW i didn't think katie holmes did THAT bad of a job. i thought she had that "wise beyond her years" vibe & duddly do right, which was perfect for the role. i guess everyone's backlashing her for marrying tom? anywho.

[Rob Lohman]

Joshua: an employee of the IMAX cinema here said to us that they where
probably (not certain yet) going to display King Kong on IMAX in 3D!