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Batman Begins

Or Batman Begins: Origins: Bruce Wayne

The reason they won't introduce robin is cos it would make the title too dang long

Batman Begins: Origins: Bruce Wayne two: Dick Grayson
 
I think the OP smart for asking, because I think BB is total crap. It is one of the most boring of the superhero movies. It features a lead actor playing an awesomely inigmatic character with absolutely no charisma.

The movie also features one of the most forgettable villains ever. Superhero movies usually rise and fall on the strength of it's villains, that is the main reason Dark Knight works so well (hate to think what DK would have been like with no Heath Ledger and Bale having to carry the movie). Scarecrow in BB is barely there and the void is never filled by Bale's performance as Batman.

It appears to me that Chris Nolan was so anxious to go in the opposite direction from Batman and Robin, he sucked all the life out of the movie. Most people were so glad that BB was not like Batman and Robin, they convinced themselves BB was actually a good movie.

Anyone who decides to skip this one won't be missing much.

Wrong on about every level, BB brought comic book to the real world and no longer where movies based upon such themes OTT and cheesy. Acting was superb, the direction was superb and the plot was a lot of fun to watch. The only people I know who didn't like it were comic elitists who wanted something closer to Batman Forever.
 
All I'll say to the original poster is yes watch Batman Begins, you've already seen The Dark Knight for some reason before so seeing Begins will help maybe make some sense of some things. Batman Begins is brilliant, my favorite of the two films, although I just re-watched The Dark Knight again the other day and was reminded how great it was but for some reason I lean back on Begins. The only change I would make to Begins overall is to include Talia somehow. Make Talia the love interest, have her meet Bruce at the compound and then years later introduce her as a socialite in Gotham City or even as the Rachael Dawes character. Denny O'Neil includes Talia in his novelization of the movie...and I would love to see her show up in Batman 3.
 
I agree with two of the criticisms posted here - since it's a beginning movie, and also since Scarecrow isn't the main villain (Ra's is), his role is underutilized. Even tho' the actor did a reasonably good job, Scarecrow and his scheme seemed weak to me.

And also, as was said by others - the last part of the movie loses coherence (for me) - what is the main villain's plot? What is that train doing? It became confusing to me at that point as to what's going on.

Suffice to say Batman wins... (He's the goddamned Batman!! :p ) and all is as right in his world as can be with a world where the joker is going to appear.
 
And also, as was said by others - the last part of the movie loses coherence (for me) - what is the main villain's plot? What is that train doing? It became confusing to me at that point as to what's going on.

Thought it was fairly obvious - to for Scarecrow's halucogene to hit the most people, it had to be vaporised (turn from a liquid to a gas).

His goons had dosed the water supply.
The Wayne Industries microwave device vapourised water.

The train line run under a major water works so the microwave unit would of vaporised all that water - and hey presto Gotham goes mad.
 
Thought it was fairly obvious - to for Scarecrow's halucogene to hit the most people, it had to be vaporised (turn from a liquid to a gas).

His goons had dosed the water supply.
The Wayne Industries microwave device vapourised water.

This I readily understood in the movie. That wasn't the problem.

The train line run under a major water works so the microwave unit would of vaporised all that water - and hey presto Gotham goes mad.

I understand the last part too - about the general aim being Gotham going mad. (And we'll leave aside questions of why?). But I read the first part of the sentence and still don't understand it - "The train line run under a major water works so the microwave unit would of vaporised all that water". What does the train line do? What happens when it reaches that particular station? That whole part made little sense. One of these days I'll watch the movie with the subtitles on.
 
It's been a while since I've seen it, but wasn't the microwave aboard the train? It was vaporizing the water as it passed by.
 
Wrong on about every level, BB brought comic book to the real world and no longer where movies based upon such themes OTT and cheesy. Acting was superb, the direction was superb and the plot was a lot of fun to watch. The only people I know who didn't like it were comic elitists who wanted something closer to Batman Forever.
Yeah, I get this from folks when I point out that the emperor has no clothes. And on the contrary, most of the comic "elitists" I know and from what I've seen posted here, love BB as much as you apparently do.

Chris Nolan evidently became caught up in trying to make it "real" while forgetting that his main character was running around in a cape and a mask. It was a superhero movie with nothing super about it, no grandeur.

Nolan and Bale managed to make a superhero movie with a supremely inigmatic hero and turn it into the most uninteresting hero/villain superhero duo ever.

I'm not saying I hate the movie, hell, if I could just get through it without snoring, I might even like it.







 
Wrong on about every level, BB brought comic book to the real world and no longer where movies based upon such themes OTT and cheesy. Acting was superb, the direction was superb and the plot was a lot of fun to watch. The only people I know who didn't like it were comic elitists who wanted something closer to Batman Forever.
I think you're just as wrong.

Batman Begins is just a James Bond movie with a funny suit. It has the same over-the-top gadgets and over-the-top villians as a Roger Moore movie. What it has going for it is slightly better actors, sfx and cinematography. Bond movies, especially the Moore ones that were so heavy on science ficiton gadgets and science fiction world threats were totally comic book stories.

It was barely a "Batman" movie. You could take the bat symbol off of the suit, change the names of Bruce, Ras and Gotham, and you'd barely recognize the movie as a Batman deriviative. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but if this is a reboot or reimagining of the Batman story, then make it a story that works on it's own.

It doesn't. Rich boy's father gets murdered, so boy runs off to to Thailand or somewhere to beat up thugs, get's thrown in prison and ends up in a secret ninja camp. Sorry, that is such a chain of unlikely events and motivations that I can't take it seriously. As a comic book, fine, but if it's supposed to be a presentation that fits into the real world somehow, that's crazy.

It's a comic book movie with a comic book hero with comic book gadgets and comic book villain with a comic book plan.

So the thing is, is it a better Batman story than the ones in either the comics or the previous movies? It's better than the worst stories, and worse than the best ones. It's nothing special, and for the sake of a complete reimagining I think fell far short of what it was trying to accomplish.

The Bruce, as depicted, with those motives, in that situation, should more likely have gone to university, studied criminology and joined the FBI. What we get is a mismash of events that are lacking any believable motivation. Nothing happens to Bruce that believably would cause him to end up in some far East hellhole prison getting in fights with the other prisoners. Sorry.

You've got a guy who somehow develops this aversion to killing, who won't kill the prisoner in the ninja camp, but blows up the friggin building causing numerous deaths. Doesn't believe in killing but causes about 15 serious car accidents without a care about deaths or injuries. This Bruce makes no sense.

Ras' intentions for Gotham makes only the slightest sense, well he's a comic book villian so he's crazy anyway. But the Gotham portrayed is not terribly different than the corruption found in any city in the world. There's no special motive to pick Gotham. Gotham needed to be shown to be unique in this story, and it just wasn't.

I could go on, but it was just a very cheesy, illogical comic booky story with decent actors and camera work. But it was a comic book. My big problem with it was, it didn't need to be Batman, it could have been a whole new character and it would have worked just the same. It doesn't add anything to Batman and it doesn't portray Batman in a particualry believable way. It's an OK movie but it's not anything that is increadibly special or ground breaking.
 
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