Batman Begins ...

Critics dismissed it as a half-baked effort. Some said they were more interested in the heroic stunts of Batman rather than his past. Christian Bale, Katie Holmes, Micheal Cane, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Rutger Hauer, Ken Watanabe - A bunch of "star" actors were brought together to enact the beginning portion of a boxoffice phenomenon called "Batman". Super heroes (whether that of DC or Marvel) always have a story of their birth whether it is Superman, Spiderman, Elektra or DareDevil. But the reasons for the birth of batman have been vague except being shown that he turned in to the caped crusader to avenge the death of his parents and get Gotham city rid of it criminals. When I first watched the Batman way back in 1989 that reasoning was enough. As I grew up I began to think that there was perhaps a little shortcoming in the saga. Batman and Robin (1997) rendered the image of Batman even more hollow. It was just an eye-candy which had all the stars but lacked substance. The movie made fans like me think - Why did he become Batman? Was it an overnight decision? Was the rich kid bored of his life? Did he buy all those fancy gadgets because he didnot know what to do with all the money he had? These are all the questions that lingered in my mind and "Batman Begins" provided the answers.

Unlike the graphic ridden, eye-pleasing metropolis as was Gotham projected in Batman and Robin of 1997, the Gotham in this movie can be substituted for any metropolis in the world today. The contemporariness is what makes the movie quite different from its previous sequels and that is what exactly makes the movie watchable. The movie would not have been as good as it is without the great script and dialogues that it carried. A perfect 10 for director Christian Nolan for that. Batman sequels have all been star-studded affairs and this prequel is no lesser. Everyone of the actors performed really well and it is hard to differentiate the charcater from the actor. Especially the Laim Neeson and Bale excel in their respective roles and the voice of Neeson seems to haunt you long after the movie if finished. Such is the effect of his calm but stern voice. Finally a mention has to be made about the background score by Hans Zimmer (Of the Black Hawk Down fame) who departed from the earlier versions scored by Danny Elfmann to come up with a very refreshing and cool soundtrack.

Plothole:

I always thought that "Joker" (played by Jack Nicholson) was the murderer of Bruce Wayne's parents as was shown in Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and not some ordinary street mugger. Also the "Joker" is later on arrested and kept in Arkham Asylum accroding to the comics. I find this as a loose end that needs to be tied up in Batman Begins.