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Jul. 2nd, 2005 03:50 pmHad the misfortune to see Batman Begins yesterday, mostly a colossal waste of time and money. It improves somewhat towards the middle/end, but the first half hour or so is astonishingly bad, simplistic, sentimental, over-moralistic and generally yawn-inducing. (Tibetan monastery, ninjas, angst, angst, angst, gratuitous action scenes, sappy flash-backs of Bruce and his parents, Bruce and his childhood sweetheart, the most wooden acting and unnatural dialogue I've seen/listened to in a while, and if I never again hear another platitude about justice and revenge and facing your fear again, I'll be a happy woman.) Then we see Bruce discovering the bat-cave-to-be, assemble & handcraft his bat-equipment, &c., which frankly isn't particularly exciting, either. After that the plot finally picks up a little and even the ninja insanity from the beginning falls into place, and, at least in hindsight, makes a little sense, but (at least for my taste) the movie always remains too simplistic in its use of themes, images and even music... the general effect is always over-melodramatic bordering on the faintly (or outright) ridiculous.
The only semi-amusing element were the in-jokes and references to Batman canon(s) - Batman climbing up a wall meeting a boy on a balcony made me snicker because it reminded me of the Adam West tv series with the horribly fake-looking wall climbing complete with concerned citizen looking out of window - , but the balance between the serious and lighter elements is way off IMO, and the whole movie just never worked out for me.
Christian Bale has potential, but his character is so flat and two-dimensional, getting all these stock-phrases and forced Significant!Moments, he never really convinced me or made me care for his character. Katie Holmes I just can't take seriously - half of my brain thinks Dawson's Creek, the other half thinks Tom Cruise & related drama, and whatever brain capacity may still be left is busy noticing how anorexic she looks. The evil psychologist was kind of interesting, or at least entertaining, and one wonders if this is where Tom Cruise got his notions about psychology and psychiatry from? Cillian Murphy looks like Tom Welling's long lost twin who can actually act. Morgan Freeman was clearly having a lot of fun. Rutger Hauer I'd have liked better if I hadn't already seen him doing a variation of the evil business man act on Smallville...
The set was pretty impressive.
In conclusion, avoid.
Then again, seeing as there are quite a lot of people who like(d) it, maybe the problem is that I'm not a comic book fan, or perhaps I'm just growing too old & jaded for this kind of movie? It didn't even amuse me in the watch & forget summer blockbuster kind of way... Or perhaps this is me being weird & contrary again, because I seem to remember enjoying the over-the-top campiness of Batman Forever, which apparently everyone hated... eh.
