The Dark Knight Trilogy: Batman Begins

Batman Begins

In 2005, Warner and DC would reboot the Batman movie franchise under the guiding hands of Christopher Nolan and David Goyer. After the dismal Batman and Robin movie, the Batman franchise was literally left for dead for nearly 10 years. Nolan would give us a very different live action Batman movie from what we have previously seen in the big screen. If Adam West gave us a campy version of Batman, and Michael Keaton giving us a Gothic inspired Batman, Nolan would give us a film noir/thriller styled Batman movie. A take that most Batman comic book fans are pretty well aware of. This facet of Batman had existed in the comic books, and it only took someone with the brilliance of Nolan to be brought out to the general public.  

Henry Ducard trains Bruce Wayne

Batman Begins stars Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman, an up and coming star who has the makings of a great Batman that is grounded more in reality than its superhero genre. Unlike the Batman movie of Tim Burton (which already establishes Batman from the get go), this movie basically takes us to the origins of Batman as we get to know what were the motivations of Bruce Wayne that led him to take the guise of the Batman persona. This movie felt more Bruce Wayne than Batman as Batman only appeared midway in the movie. As a child, Bruce's parents were killed, forcing him to be orphaned at a very young age and was left under the care of their family butler Alfred Pennyworth. When Bruce reaches adulthood, he decides to take the law in his own hands by attempting to kill the person responsible for his parents death. Unfortunately, someone beat him to it, a hired gunman from one of Gotham's most dangerous crime syndicates. Bruce decides to pay this crime boss a visit, a person named Carmine Falcone, who is one of the persons responsible for turning Gotham into a crime laden city. Falcone had Bruce beat up while revealing to him that one should be feared to fully grasp power. Bruce runs away from Gotham city and engaged himself to do criminal activities (particularly theft) as he wanted to learn and understand how the criminals operate. During one of his crime spree, he and his gang were busted and arrested. In his prison cell, he was visited by someone by the name of Henry Ducard (played by Liam Neeson), a self styled vigilante of the group The League of Shadows who were led by the enigmatic Ra's Al Ghul. He offers to train and recruit Bruce to join the league. An offer that Bruce initially accepted before he turned against the group.

Bruce battles Ra's Al Ghul

Bruce comes to learn that the League of Shadows is targeting to destroy Gotham City because they view Gotham City as excessively corrupt and beyond saving. The league in a way is practicing their vigilantism too extremely to the point that they would play God as to which city or civilization should continue to exist. Bruce burns to the ground the League's headquarters and goes face to face with Ra's Al Ghul, beating him and leaving him for dead as the headquarters crumble to ashes. Bruce saves Ducard in the process, showing his appreciation for taking him under his wing and leaves him under the care of the villagers he met on his way back to Gotham. With new found knowledge and recently learned skills on hand to hand combat, Bruce returns to Gotham City with a new mission, to save Gotham City from the criminal organizations that engulfs it. Posing as millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne by day, and a masked vigilante by night, Bruce seeks to rid Gotham City from its criminal bosses by starting with Carmine Falcone. While visiting Wayne Enterprises, Bruce stumbles across Lucius Fox, head of the company's research and development department who shows to Bruce a number of items that would prove helpful in his quest to fight crime. Bruce also conquered his fear of bats, and using it as an inspiration to strike fear in the criminals' hearts as Batman.  

Batman squares off with Jonathan Crane a.k.a Scarecrow

Bruce equips himself with high tech gadgetry and weaponry as he took on the identity of Batman. His first act was to bust Falcone's illegal drugs shipment and brought him to jail. Batman successfully defeats Falcone and his men, sending them to jail. But Falcone's involvement with Dr. Jonathan Crane, a psychiatrist who is an ally of the League of Shadows, would cause Falcone to hallucinate and psychologically break down as Crane exposes him with his Fear toxin. Crane did this to protect the League from being exposed as they have been working together to smuggle fear toxins in their plot to contaminate Gotham City's water supply with it. During this time, Bruce also befriends an up and coming honest and incorruptible cop by the name of Sgt. James Gordon. Meanwhile, Bruce's childhood friend, Gotham City Assistant District Attorney Rachel Dawes, visits Falcone in Arkham Asylum (a prison facility for the criminally insane) to solicit information from Falcone. Due to her meddling, Crane captures her and douses her with the same fear toxin but not before telling her about the League's plan for Gotham City. Batman saves Rachel as the two escape the facility through a tank like vehicle simply called The Tumbler (this movie franchise's version of the Batmobile). Batman manages to acquire an antidote for the fear toxin through Lucius Fox and used it on Rachel to cure her from the effects of the toxin. He also orders Rachel to send Sgt. Gordon a vial of the antidote for mass production.  

Batman defeats Ra's Al Ghul

Later that evening, Bruce celebrates his birthday in his mansion with a number of Gotham's rich and famous but was suddenly surprised to find the presence of a young Ra's Al Ghul and the very much alive Henry Ducard. Ducard then reveals that he is in fact the real Ra's Al Ghul and all the others were just decoys to hide his real identity. Bruce, feigning drunkenness, orders his guests to leave the mansion. Ra's then reveals to Bruce the League's plan of destroying Gotham City by using the fear toxin to create mass hysteria among Gotham residents, effectively justifying their move to run Gotham to the ground and destroy the city's populace. Bruce being outnumbered, got beat up by Ra's men and had his mansion burned down. It was Ra's act of repaying Bruce for burning his house. Bruce awakens at the sight of his burning mansion but he disregards it and instead dons his cowl. As Batman, he races against time to halt The League's plan of destroying Gotham City. Batman enlists the help of Sgt. Gordon to assist him as the Gotham City Police Department tries to contain the mob and the escaped criminals. Batman confronts Ra's and a battle ensues. Batman manages to beat Ra's Al Ghul, this time lamenting to him that he won't kill but also he is not obligated to save him. Batman escapes the monorail train as Ra's falls to his death. In the end, the public accepts Batman as Gotham City's defender but Bruce begins to lose his personal life as Rachel could not love Bruce and his duality as Batman.    

Revoltech Batman v.s. Mattel Movie Masters Scarecrow

Initially, I did not enjoy Batman Begins in the same way that I enjoyed Tim Burton's first Batman. Batman Begins as I've said earlier was more like a Bruce Wayne action movie and crime thriller than your average superhero movie. Tim Burton's Batman from the get go was a Batman movie that seemed to have been taken right from the pages of the comic books. Batman Begins did not make me feel this way. What could be the reason behind this? Is it because of the villains that they have chosen for this film? Mobsters and criminals are not your traditional superhero movie villains. It also does not help that Scarecrow rarely wears a mask. But if the lack of identity as a superhero movie is what drives die-hard superhero movie fans away from this, then this is also what makes it standout from the other superhero movies. Batman Begins was the first act of a trilogy. Although Nolan did explain that while filming this movie, he had no other plans for a sequel, Batman Begins for me is still an incomplete movie when it comes to introducing Batman for the new generation if viewed as a stand alone movie. Maybe I found it like it is because the bigger superhero movie fan in me wanted more of Batman on screen than Bruce Wayne. Tim Burton's Batman did wonders for me because if viewed as a stand alone movie, all of the elements that I wanted in a Batman movie can already be viewed there as a whole. But if viewed as part of a trilogy, then that is a different story altogether. One must view Nolan's Batman in its entirety. Batman Begins set the tone for this franchise, but the sequel would blow away the audiences (me included). But if taken on a one on one comparison, I'd still choose Burton's first Batman over this.     

The Toy Lines

Mattel Batman Begins action figures

There are two toy lines that I would like to review for this entry. There was supposed to be a third one (Mattel's Movie Masters), but since I'm not a big Batman fan, I skipped on the Movie Masters and got instead these two:

Mattel Basic Batman Begins action figures:
These action figures stands at approximately 5 inches and features a swivel neck, shoulders, hips, and hinged elbows and knees. These are pretty standard for action figures from the 90's down to mid 2000s before toy companies started downsizing their basic action figures to 4 inches. This toy line features a number of Batmen with assorted colors and gimmicks, Scarecrow (not shown on the picture), Henry Ducard, and Ra's Al Ghul. I actually missed out on the Batman figures in this toy line. The Bruce Wayne/Batman figure I used here came from The Dark Knight toy line as it reissues the same figure from the first movie but with a different head sculpt.   
I only managed to back track Ra's Al Ghul and Henry Ducard in the discount bins. All three (Bruce, Henry, Ra's) shares the same body sculpt but with different paint applications. I think they also share the same accessories. The head sculpt is not as good as let's say the Movie Masters releases but it's passable for its standard. The likeness of the actors is there, though it is not as highly detailed as that of the Movie Masters. The Bruce to Batman action figure is a must have for me because of its gimmick of dressing up Bruce to become Batman. The Tim Burton Batman toy line also had this kind of gimmick as shown here.  
Though not as superior as the Movie Masters adult collector toy line, this is adequate enough for those who want to save up from owning the more pricey Movie Masters. More photos below.

Mattel Batman Begins and Batman The Dark Knight basic figures

Batman Begins Bruce Wayne figure all suited up

Revoltech Batman Begins

Revoltech Batman Begins

Batman Begins

Revoltech Batman Begins: Japanese toys have always been superior to American toys when it comes to sculpt, accessories, and gimmicks. This Batman Begins action figure from Japanese toy makers Revoltech is another testament to that. The figure comes with an assortment of articulation. It features a ball jointed head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, chest, hips, knees, and ankles. It seems this figure has ball joints all over them. Its cape even includes a couple of ball joints. This Batman looks skinny though when compared to the Movie Masters. The figure also comes with an alternate Bruce Wayne head that does not look like Christian Bale. It actually looks like an anemic and old Bale to be exact. The figure stands at approximately six inches. What I love about this figure is the amount of detailed sculpts that it comes with. I find this figure less durable though when compared to the movie masters because the hard plastics that it is built from would have the tendency to break during hard play. I still would prefer the movie masters over these. I only loaned this figure from my brother for this review. Check out below for more pics.  

With Bruce Wayne alternate head

Ball jointed cape allows you to do this

This wraps up my feature on Batman Begins, next stop, The Dark Knight. See you in my next entry.