Why must Superman, Spider-Man and Batman suffer such split-personality angst that their Prozac refills break the bank? Let Freud clue you in: Caped and sticky-fingered crusaders alike are propelled into their life's work of offing badguys and righting wrongs by the death of dad. Yes, yes, I know, Superman later gets adopted by a salt-of-the-earth Midwesterner, and Spidey only loses a fatherly uncle - but it's still the shattering loss of the guy who largely defines a boy's sense of masculinity that grows the compensating superpower.
In "Batman Begins," fifth film in the franchise Warner Bros. inaugurated in 1989, that pattern plays out with a vengeance for Bruce Wayne, offspring of wealthy, beautiful parents whose charity drops like manna from heaven for Gothamites mired in the Depression.
When his son falls into a dark well, there to be battered by swarms of bats, the elder Wayne (Linus Roache) descends like a comforting angel to rescue the traumatized child: "Why do we fall?" dad catechizes afterwards. "So we can learn to pick ourselves up." God the Father has spoken, and his First Commandment sounds suspiciously like that tricky old doctrine of predestination and the Fortunate Fall: we sin so that we can be redeemed. (Since Wayne's a doctor, too, I guess the corollary would be that we get sick so that we can be cured.)
Plotwise, "Batman Begins" verges on biblical parable, warring Old and New Testament approaches to good fathering - of sons or cities. Visually, the film moves its saviors and sinners, angels and devils, up toward heavenly salvation or deep into wells of moral darkness. But these ups and downs aren't schematic; the Dark Knight and Emil Ducard, the mentor who helps to birth Batman, operate in redemptive arenas where black and white are shifting values.
No match for a crazed druggie with a gun, the saintly Wayne Sr. (and his wife) leaves a legacy of guilt - and the underlying lesson that saintliness spells impotence, and impotence gets you killed. In the strange, difficult journey that takes up the film's first half-hour, Batman-to-be (Christian Bale, as buff and chiseled as he was in "American Psycho") tries to go to hell in Bhutan. Plunging into the down-and-dirty world of thugs and thieves, he beats every brute to a pulp to vent his guilty rage.
Echoing that earlier rescue from the well, a new dad - Emil Ducard (Liam Neeson) - steps in to draw this potential Moses up to the top of a mountain to receive some extremely unforgiving commandments. Seems one Ra's Al Ghul (magnificent Ken Watanabe, totally wasted here) heads a Shadow League, warriors who fight evil. Bruce is invited to join, to be fathered into singleminded strength and power by the magnetic Ducard, striking contrast to the late, wimpy Doc Wayne.
(Liam Neeson vests this supporting role with his usual virile authority, resonantly and convincingly voicing the script's philosophical gobbledygook. Though he's proved his dramatic ability on stage as well as on film, Neeson's fast getting typecast as Good Warrior Father - see "Star Wars: Phantom Menace," "Gangs of New York," "Kingdom of Heaven.")
But, alas, Ra's Al Ghul (in Arabic, "The Demon's Head") turns into a Darth Vader who subscribes to an Old Testament approach to fallen cities like Gotham: Wipe them out Sodom-and-Gomorrah-style. Surely, thinks young Bruce, capital punishment is not the only answer. So he heads back to Gotham, straight into the welcoming arms of not one but two sweet old fatherly types: Alfred the butler (adorable Michael Caine) and Lucius Fox, Wayne Enterprise's equivalent of 007's M (adorable Morgan Freeman).
Christian Bale plays Batman/Bruce Wayne honorably, if rather dourly, never selling out his various personae for cheap laughs. (For superb chops in a chameleon role, catch Bale the boy of 18 years ago in Steven Spielberg's much-underrated "Empire of the Sun," playing a rich English kid separated from his parents in WWII China, surviving horrors under the tutelage of an American Fagin, John Malkovich.) During Act II of "Batman Begins," the mask Bale presents to the world is that of a womanizing, empty-headed playboy, the antithesis of his social-reformer father. Behind the scenes, he singlemindedly creates an alter ego, a man who dreams he's a bat, the creature he has always feared. There's a kind of glittery-eyed madness in Bruce's methodical fabrication of lair, costume, transportation, weapons - all the accoutrements of a superhero who fights for good but looks like The Devil.
Once he's dressed for the part, this newborn superhero swoops down from somewhere - like an avenging angel - to put the big hurt on badguys. Director Christopher Nolan's clearly trying to evoke bat attacks in the way his Batman whips and whirls around so vigorously you can't really see what he's up to, but the effect is largely just an irritating blur. Afterwards, he chitters off (great sound effect) through Gotham's mean streets in his half-tank, half-Ferrari.
Combining his father's compassion with Ducard's hard justice, this schizophrenic son means to pick up Gotham's pieces, not level it.
Then, just as Bruce begins to truly grow into his self-created identity, glorying in his superpowers, that old quest for dad takes a very dark turn indeed....
"Batman Begins" delivers obligatory mayhem, involving improbable villains, attacks and counterattacks - fodder for teenagers, a bit tedious for "Kill Bill" aficionados. The film takes on dramatic heft through a strong supporting cast, including Gary Oldman, Gotham's one honest cop; Tom Wilkinson, the last of the old-time ganglords; and a very creepy Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow, Batman's first trademarked adversary, a shrink who spreads instant insanity.
The patriarchy that is "Batman Begins" makes room for only one woman, Bruce's childhood sweetheart Rachel (dull, dull Katie Holmes). She pops up periodically to aim long, disappointed looks and lectures on conscience at the irresponsible playboy she believes him to be. Because there's absolutely no emotional or sexual spark between Bale and Holmes, it's of little to no interest whether she'll eventually decide he's the (Bat)man for her.
This Batman movie is more than a cut above the trash screen-comics represented by Joel Schumacher's ruinous "Batman Forever" and "Batman and Robin." While never achieving the expressionistic beauty of Tim Burton's "Batman" and "Batman Returns," "Batman Begins" - from the director of "Memento" and "Insomnia" - is an intelligent stab at taking the Dark Knight seriously again.
Nolan aims for a rotting Gotham closer to the urban dystopia of "Blade Runner," and a superhero who might trade ninja moves with "Kill Bill"'s vengeful Bride or slum it with Wesley Snipes' righteous vampire Blade ("Batman Begins" screenwriter David S. Goyer scripted all three "Blade" films).
Perhaps deliberately, Nolan keeps "Batman Begins" grounded, avoiding the hot air of popcult wisecracks, cartoon silliness, endless CGI-enhanced action. Irony, that human handle on the unbearable, is absent, as is the dark enchantment that might attend a man metamorphosing into soaring bat.
Backed by Hans Zimmer's Götterdämmerung music score - monumental thrumming, engine-revving, industrial rhythms - the film sometimes reminds one of the factory in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis," here working overtime to spawn a black-armored, horned devil. And though Nolan more than once exploits Batman's resemblance to vampire or dark Lucifer - and Bruce as a boy is freaked out by operatic demons who remind him of the terrifying bats - this provocative comparison never really adds up to much.
And that's the rub: Fun to watch while it's on screen, "Batman Begins" is largely forgettable in the light of day. Big ideas and craftsmanlike direction do not movie magic make.[[In-content Ad]]
