The Dark Knight

"You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

True words for one of the many great characters in this, arguably the best superhero movie ever. Christopher Nolan surpasses his brilliant reimagining of the Batman legacy. Batman is now a force in Gotham City, striking fear in the hearts of all criminals, resulting in a drastic drop in crime. That is until a familiar villain begins a campaign of chaos. 

Christian Bale returns as Batman, once again a strong performance. The regular crew of Gary Oldman, Michael Caine & Morgan Freeman are all great too. Maggie Gyllenhaal replaces Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes and performs well. Aaron Eckhart's interpretation of Two-Face is definitely the best. Gone are the memories of Tommy Lee Jones' poor man's Joker impression from Batman Forever and in comes a dark, vengeful psychopath. Eckhart delivers powerful emotion and is gripping throughout the final act. 

But all acting praise goes to Heath Ledger for his masterful portrayal of the Joker. Ledger brings a new layer of creepiness to the famed Batman villain character. With no goal in life but to cause chaos, Joker in this film is scary but you can't take your eyes off him. He commands all the attention and deservedly so. Every mannerism and movement he does looks all so natural to him. A richly deserved Oscar winning role, Ledger's performance is definitely the highlight of the film. 

The story is really enthralling, thanks to the solid script and excellent acting. The music by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard is incredible. Every piece of music fits perfectly into every scene it is used in, enhancing the drama, the action, the perils and the characters. The action sequences are shot beautifully and look amazing. I'm pretty sure they would look fantastic on an IMAX screen, as the DVD I own contain several IMAX scenes, including the brilliant car chase. 

Darker, more action-packed and entirely gripping, The Dark Knight is the definitive Batman film for any and all fans of the Caped Crusader.

★★★★★

Batman Begins

"It's Not Who I Am Underneath. It's What I Do That Defines Me."

Tim Burton directed the first major Batman movie in 1989. It was a great film with it's dark gothic tone, energetic villain and interesting hero. As the years passed, the Batman films degraded into a brightly coloured, slapstick, comedic style franchise geared for young audiences. Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin died a horrible death at the box office and no new Bat-films were released. For years, reboots ideas were being tossed around until Christopher Nolan decided to tackle the project. And what we got is a fantastic beginning of a terrific superhero trilogy, arguably the best. 

Nolan created a more realistic world, a new Gotham City which anybody can immerse themselves into the characters are more realistic than their comic book counterparts and there is none of the silliness of the Schumacher films. It retains a dark mood like Burton's films but doesn't go into gothic territory and it doesn't delve into the campy style of the 60's Batman. This is the dream film franchise every Bat-fan demanded. 

The first film, Batman Begins, starts the franchise reboot very well. It gives us a different look at the already established characters of the comics but changes their personality for the realistic world and we get more in-depth characters. 

The story looks at Bruce Wayne from youth dealing with his fear of bats and witnessing the death of his parents to his travels to the Himalayas training to become a fighter to rid Gotham of criminals. The story is very well paced and delves deep into the character of Bruce Wayne. I like the elements of crime films added with the presence of Gotham criminal kingpin Carmine Falcone. As for superhero fiction, there are elements at the end of the film which make it a true superhero film and transitions from origin to crime to superhero genre very smoothly. 

Bruce Wayne is played by Christian Bale, and in my opinion the best actor to portray Bruce/Batman. He plays a troubled young man seen at the beginning of the film very well and we sympathise with his choices of avenging his dead parents to his search to fight the means of injustice. Bale looks very comfortable playing he grown up Bruce Wayne and commands a terrifying presence as Batman, even if his voice is criticized for being too gravely The supporting cast is tremendous. Michael Caine is a good Alfred, although I wish he grew a moustache for the role. In previous Bat-films, Commissioner Gordon doesn't really have a large role. He is usually just in the background barking orders. However, Gary Oldman's presence adds incredible depth to the character and we have a connection with him because of Oldman's star power and the value of Jim Gordon to Batman in the comics. This film really brings us a proper Commissioner Gordon. Katie Holmes, Morgan Freeman & Tom Wilkinson all play pivotal roles and are all relevant to the story. 

I like the choice of villains, The Scarecrow and Ra's Al Ghul, played respectively by Cillian Murphy and Liam Neeson. They have never been portrayed on film and aren't as well known as Joker, Mr. Freeze and Riddler. Murphy & Neeson play their roles very well. There roles in the story make it more compelling since it was Al Ghul who trained Batman and adds a Student Vs Teacher battle at the end of the film. Although we mostly saw the man behind the Scarecrow mask Jonathan Crane then his villain alter ego, but the character is set up very well and raises hopes that Scarecrow would have a larger role in a future film. How disappointed Scarecrow fans would be when The Dark Knight did come out, 

Adding the realism of the movies, Nolan doesn't include a lot of CGI. Although scenery like in the Himalayas is CGI, Nolan doesn't depend a lot on CGI which adds more credibility to the film. I enjoy films more when it uses CGI only when needed and Nolan definitely used the special effects where applied. 

In conclusion, Batman Begins is the beginning of one of the greatest trilogies in history. The characters are incredibly detailed and have a lot of depth, the origin story is splendid and the plot is very well constructed, despite some minor complaints, such as the reason for the diabolical plan which isn't explained very well. The realistic Gotham environment has hints of Burton's scenery of his first Batman film. With none of the silliness from Joel Schumacher's films and not going to gothic like Tim Burton, Christhopher Nolan gives us a different and realistic world of Batman we fans needed.

★★★★★