Batman Begins

A lot of us have never really been satisfied with the Batman series. None of the actors playing Batman have really seemed just right for the role, and the villains have seemed almost too cartoonish even for a movie based on a cartoon.

This time around, they did it just about right. Oh, there are quibbles: Katie Holmes somehow doesn't feel right as an Assistant D.A. here. TomWilkinson looks far too British in extraction to have a name like Carmine Falcone. Sure, in Italy you find Italians who don't look stereotypically Italian, but characters in fiction are built on stereotypes, and if they deviate from one, you are given a reason why.

On the other hand, there are sublime casting choices starting with the underappreciated Christian Bale as the manbat Bruce Wayne himself. Michael Caine who is good even in bad movies, turns in a classic performance as Alfred the Butler. Liam Neeson looks about as tough and masculine as a man can look as Wayne's fighting teacher. Gary Oldman gets lost the the degree of almost total unrecognizability in the character of Jim Gordon, the good cop who teams up with our caped crusader. Let's not forget another splendid Morgan Freeman performance, this time playing a "Q" type of character who supplies Batman with advanced weapons and technology. Cillian Murphy and Rutger Hauer turn in good performances as well, though Cillian does seem a little young to head a mental facility 10 stories tall.

This Batman is plagued by guilt for being the inadvertent cause of his parents' murder when he was a young boy. Liam Neeson's character takes Bruce Wayne under his wing and trains him in esoteric fighting arts seemingly loosely based on Ninjitsu (The Way of the Ninja), which allows him to fight through a combination of fighting skill, surprise, deception, distraction, and the ability to disappear.

Wayne now has a purpose in life: the take out the garbage in Gotham, a city overrun by criminals and corruption.

The special effects here are state of the art, although as suits a warrior who fights in the Ninja way, the fights are often a virtual blur. And then there is a Batmobile that is as cool as can be, but I suppose I should complain that it doesn't look like any Batman I've ever seen in the cartoons.

I don't suppose I should expect a movie based on a cartoon to be strictly kosher when it comes to science, but in this version, Batman's cave is literally shared with bats. Now, one thing I can tell you about real bat caves is that they are poisonous places, thick with bat guano, bacteria, and decaying bats on the floor and with air rich in poisonous methane gas. If you ever go into a bat cave, I suggest bringing your own oxygen. Since the bats hang from the ceiling and methane is heavier than air, they are not affected.

Bad science aside, the movie is never boring and one can only hope that this is the beginning of a new series of Batman movies, including a couple "do overs."