The Billiken's Bluff

"But it's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you."

Just one of the many lines that I enjoyed from Batman Begins (and spoken by Katie Holmes no less).

Since I don't care to take the time and effort to write an in-depth review of this film, I'll quote from Manohla Dargis @ the NY Times:

Conceived in the shadow of American pop rather than in its bright light, this tense, effective iteration of Bob Kane's original comic book owes its power and pleasures to a director who takes his material seriously and to a star who shoulders that seriousness with ease.

The story opens with the adult Bruce in the middle of that journey, in the far reaches of Asia, where he first rubs shoulders with ''the criminal fraternity,'' then a clandestine brotherhood called the League of Shadows. Lead by a warrior sensei, Ra's al Ghul (Ken Watanabe), and his aide, Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson, at his lethal best), the league invites Bruce into its fold, an offer he violently declines. Thereafter, he returns to Gotham City, where he assumes a dual identity as both the city's wealthiest citizen and its avenging angel.

Mr. Bale even improves on Michael Keaton, who donned Batman's cape both in Tim Burton's 1989 ''Batman'' and its funhouse sequel three years later, and gave the character a jolt of menace. What Mr. Keaton couldn't bring to the role, and what Mr. Bale conveys effortlessly, is Bruce Wayne's air of casual entitlement, the aristocratic hauteur that is the necessary complement of Batman's obsessive megalomania.

I've come to expect so little from action movies and from comic book adaptations and from movies like the latest set of Star Wars prequels that I was amazed at how much I thoroughly enjoyed Batman Begins.

The film stars Christian Bale who plays the best Batman yet. He brings some American Psycho to the role (I suppose he will bring some of that character to every role he takes on for the rest of his career). And by doing so, the movie is darker and more psychological than any of the other movies in the series. It is less of a cartoon, and more of an epic. I would love to see director Christopher Nolan re-make the other 4 Batman movies.

Cillian Murphy plays the psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Crane.



He uses a hallucinogenic spray that causes his victims to have a (very) psychotic episode. He then dons this-



-Scarecrow mask and scares the shit out of everyone involved, the movie-goer included. The scarecrow mask calls to mind that spooky Nike Mask commericial campaign from this past Winter.



Liam Neeson is fantastic as Henri Ducard, who as leader of the League of Shadows, has determined that Gotham is, like Sodom and Gomorrah before it, beyond redemption and must be destroyed. He wants to unleash Dr. Crane’s hallucinogen on the city.



The film is realistic and enjoyable. Most importantly it does what every good film based on a comic should do - it makes you wish you were a superhero.

I came out of the movie amped up. I felt the same way I felt after seeing Matrix for the first time. After seeing the first of that trilogy I wanted to jump off cars, bend spoons with a sharp glance and generally defy the laws of physics. After seeing Batman Begins, I wanted to travel to East Asia. Live like a pauper. Study martial arts. Have Alfred come pick me up in my Leer Jet. Fly back to my mansion. Take over my Financial Empire. Battle the criminal underworld, and save Gotham from annihilation. All the while looking cooler than cool.