Friday Review: Batman Begins

OK, so it's a bit retro now, but I've been catching up on some TV and movies lately, and slightly irreverant movie reviews are quite fun (and fill blog space). I guess most people with a vague interest will have seen it by now, so I won't waste too much time, but I will share a couple of thoughts with anyone who cares to read them.

Now, I'm no comic book or superhero expert, but I am reliably informed that the recent crop of superhero movies have been (on the whole) a lot better in terms of faithfulness to source material than a lot of earlier ones. Certainly the previous Batman franchise started off ok (the one, I believe, with Buster Keaton in the title role) but deteriorated into camp naffness. Batman Begins, on the other hand, gives a lot more time to developing Bruce Wayne as a character, and showing how he became Batman. It's quite a dark movie, and Batman is a hero with a dark side, but because we understand Wayne's back story, that is not gratuitous, and is exactly how it should be.

So we meet Bruce starting fights in a jail in the Himalayas, either by choice, or because he is truly lost, according to Merely Ducard, a stranger who turns up and invites Wayne to join the League of Shadows. The League follows a code which upholds the natural order of things, unbound by the hypocrisy of corporate Gotham City. And who, lost and in search of purpose, wouldn't be tempted to follow such a code?

It is during this journey that young Bruce, challenged to help the League destroy Gotham City, discovers the importance of compassion and decides instead to save the city; the vengeful nearly-villain becomes the hero and saviour of the city.

Batman Begins is a story of greatness (and goodness) coming out of tragedy and evil. It's a story of salvation, both of Bruce Wayne and Gotham City. It's a top-notch comic book/superhero flick. And it's got Charlie Croker in it, which can only be a good thing.