A Great Translation

Shannon and I watched Batman Begins last week. I must say that it was perhaps the best comic-to-movie film I've ever seen. (I'm not sure if that's saying much though) Don't get me wrong; I loved X-Men 1 and 2, Spiderman was pretty good, never saw FF or Hulk (though they didn't seem too great...). But I loved what they did with Batman Begins. Christopher Nolan, the director, did a great job in bringing the Dark Knight into the 21st century while staying true to the character (for the non-comic fans, Batman is over 60 years old, though he's probably only aged 15 years since his inception in the comics.) The plot was very sound, the acting was superb, the casting was great (except for maybe Katie Holmes; nothing personal, she's just too young for the part she played), and everything just really meshed together.

I found it very redeeming after Joel Schumacher's two horrible attempts at a comic-y Batman movie. I'm still trying to open-mindedly compare this movie with those of Tim Burton. His first movie was definitely better than the second (though DeVito was great as the Penguin). I honestly just don't like Tim Burton, so I'm very biased. (My reason why: I read a really bad history on the goings-on of the upcoming Superman movie of which Tim Burton at one time was at the helm. The writer gave the very strong impression that Tim doesn't like anything light-hearted unless it has a very dark underside. He assumedly had Superman in a black suit without superpowers and an unexploded Krypton.) Anyway, I'm trying to be fair to him... I think he really captured the darkness of Batman in his movies, much like Daredevil did (which I think was much better than movie watcher's gave it credit; it really caught the darkness of the character, which is much like Batman in the pursuit of justice while employing bruit force and fear... Hmm... come to think of it, it sounds like Daredevil is just a ripoff of Batman... sigh). However, I think think Nolan's movie brought in better casting and more character's to support the script, not that Nolan has much to do with that since he's only the director. What Nolan did do well was capture the darkness while also correctly applying the lighter side of Bruce Wayne and developing the character. He seemed more human than Michael Keaton's Batman (though he played that character very well, perhaps better than Christian Bale, but Bale's script was better in my opinion).

Well, in conclusion, Nolan's movie was the best. Burton gets honorable mention. Joel... we'll just try to forget those movies were ever made... sigh. ~Michael

PS - I'm still learning how to critique movies, so insight is welcomed. If it sounds like I don't know I'm talking about, then I probably don't. But no apologies if your a Schumacker fan!