Christopher Nolan's Batman Series
Batman Begins (June 14/05)
Batman returns in this film from acclaimed director Christopher Nolan, and while there's no denying that the movie is far more effective than either of Joel Schumacher's installments (Batman Forever and Batman and Robin), Tim Burton's Batman still remains the most intriguing and entertaining of the Dark Knight's adventures. Part of the problem this time around involves sheer overlength; at a running time of 141 minutes, the film goes on much longer than it needs to (in fact, there's a point where the movie could naturally end, though the thing keeps chugging along for another half hour or so). And yet, Nolan (along with star Christian Bale) deserves kudos for successfully reinvigorating the franchise, which is really no small feat when you consider the tatters that Schumacher left it in. Batman Begins essentially acts as a prequel to the first four movies, as it spends a good chunk of time exploring Bruce Wayne's transformation into the titular superhero. The story kicks off in a Chinese prison, where Wayne (Bale) meets an enigmatic figure known only as Ducard (Liam Neeson). Ducard is the right-hand man of Ra's Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe), the leader of a shadowy cult devoted to righting the perceived wrongs of a culture. It's there that Wayne picks up his fighting abilities, but it's not until he returns to Gotham that he begins to develop the idea of an alter-ego. Interestingly, the most compelling sequences in Batman Begins have nothing to do with the Caped Crusader - which makes sense, given that roughly half of the film revolves around Bruce Wayne sans the bat costume. Contributing to this feeling are the film's drab and occasionally incoherent action sequences; Nolan's seemingly taken a page from Paul Greengrass' Bourne Supremacy rulebook and imbued the more violent sequences with choppy editing and shaky camerawork. Then again, such antics do fit in with the gritty, almost realistic world envisioned by Nolan; it's clear that the filmmaker is trying to get away from Burton and Schumacher's ultra-stylized adaptations, and on that level, he undoubtedly succeeds. Yet with actors such as Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and Tom Wilkinson in the film's cast, it's hard not to wish more time had been spent with Bale out of the batsuit. Nolan (who co-wrote the film with David Goyer) spends a lot of time developing these various characters, something that's assisted by the presence of the performers (Wilkinson, in particular, does a wonderful job of stepping into the shoes of a sleazy crime boss). But all their work is generally ignored as the film barrels towards its increasingly frenetic conclusion, which is overblown and far more action-packed than one would like (add in some garish colors and you've got the latest Schumacher Bat-flick). Having said that, Batman Begins is generally an extremely entertaining, exceedingly well-acted summer movie. Unfortunately, that's all it is.
out of
The Dark Knight (July 17/08)
An obvious improvement over its immediate predecessor, The Dark Knight is a sprawling epic that admittedly does suffer from some of the same problems as Batman Begins (ie overlength) yet there's little doubt that the movie manages to hold the viewer in rapt attention from start to finish. Director Christopher Nolan - working from a screenplay co-written with Jonathan Nolan - emphasizes an unexpectedly grim sensibility that pervades virtually every aspect of the proceedings (ie Wally Pfister's stark cinematography, James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer's moody score, etc), which certainly assures the film's place as one of the most adult and flat-out uncompromising comic-book adaptations in cinematic history. The storyline - which essentially follows Christian Bale's Batman as he tangles with a fierce villain called the Joker (Heath Ledger) - has been augmented with a whole host of subplots and subcharacters, as Nolan's efforts to replicate the style and tone of such gritty forebearers as Michael Mann's Heat and Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy ensure that's there's a lot going on within the final product's 152-minute running time. And to a certain extent, it's hard to argue that he hasn't succeeded; though the screen is consistently dominated by larger-than-life figures, there's simply no denying that the whole thing remains strangely plausible throughout (ie take away the masks and costumes and you've got an above-average contemporary crime thriller). The filmmaker's refreshingly adult modus operandi is primarily reflected in the acting, as - in addition to the expected superb work from Bale, Michael Caine, and Gary Oldman - the movie boasts an absolutely spellbinding performance from the late Heath Ledger. The degree to which he disappears into (and thoroughly reinvents) the Joker is nothing short of staggering, and it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility that his take on the iconic character will find a permanent place within the canon of legendary film villains. Even the film's action sequences - which were utterly lackluster in Batman Begins - have been improved upon substantially here, and it consequently goes without saying that The Dark Knight ultimately manages to overtake Tim Burton's Batman as the Caped Crusader's most enthralling big-screen adventure.
out of