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Batman Begins

Batman Begins is a 2005 superhero film directed by Christopher Nolan and written by Nolan and David S. Goyer. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, it stars Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman, with Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, Ken Watanabe, and Morgan Freeman in supporting roles. The film reboots the Batman film series, telling the origin story of Bruce Wayne from the death of his parents to his journey to become Batman and his fight to stop Ra's al Ghul and the Scarecrow from plunging Gotham City into chaos.

This article is about the film. For the tie-in video game, see Batman Begins (video game).

Batman Begins

David S. Goyer

Characters appearing in comic books published
by DC Comics

Warner Bros. Pictures

  • May 31, 2005 (2005-05-31) (Tokyo)
  • June 15, 2005 (2005-06-15) (United States)
  • June 17, 2005 (2005-06-17) (United Kingdom)

140 minutes[1]

  • United States[2]
  • United Kingdom[2]

English

$150 million[3]

$373.7 million[3]

After Batman & Robin was panned by critics and underperformed at the box office, Warner Bros. Pictures cancelled future Batman films, including Joel Schumacher's planned Batman Unchained. Between 1998 and 2003, several filmmakers collaborated with Warner Bros. in attempting to reboot the franchise. After the studio rejected a Batman origin story reboot Joss Whedon pitched in December 2002, Warner Bros. hired Nolan in January 2003 to direct a new film. Nolan and Goyer began development on the film in early 2003. Aiming for a darker, more realistic tone compared to the previous films, a primary goal for their vision was to engage the audience's emotional investment in both the Batman and Bruce Wayne identities of the lead character. The film, which was principally shot in the United Kingdom, Iceland and Chicago, relied heavily on traditional stunts and miniature effects, with computer-generated imagery being used in a minimal capacity compared to other action films. Comic book storylines such as The Man Who Falls, Batman: Year One, and Batman: The Long Halloween served as inspiration.


Expectations for Batman Begins ranged from moderate to low, which originated from the poor reception of Batman & Robin that was credited with stalling the Batman film series in 1997. After premiering in Tokyo on May 31, 2005, the film was released on June 15, 2005. It received highly positive reviews from critics, who deemed the film an improvement over the Schumacher films. The film grossed over $371.9 million worldwide, becoming the ninth-highest-grossing film of 2005 and was the second highest grossing Batman film at the time behind Tim Burton's Batman (1989). Receiving a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, the film elevated Bale to leading man status while it made Nolan a high-profile director.


Since its release, Batman Begins has often been cited as one of the most influential films of the 2000s. It was credited for revitalizing the Batman character in popular culture, shifting its tone towards a darker and more serious tone and style. The film helped popularise the term reboot in Hollywood, inspiring studios and filmmakers to revive franchises with realistic and serious tones. It was followed by The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), with the three films constituting The Dark Knight Trilogy.

Plot

In Gotham City, after falling down a well and getting swarmed by bats, a young Bruce Wayne develops a fear of them. At the opera with his parents, Bruce becomes unsettled by performers masquerading as bats and asks to leave. Outside, mugger Joe Chill murders Bruce's parents in front of him. Bruce is raised by the family butler, Alfred Pennyworth.


Fourteen years later, Chill testifies against the mafia crime boss, Carmine Falcone, and is paroled. Bruce intends to murder Chill to avenge his parents, but one of Falcone's hitmen does so first. Bruce's childhood friend, Rachel Dawes, berates him for acting outside the justice system. After confronting Falcone, who says real power comes from being feared, Bruce spends the next seven years traveling the world, training in combat, and immersing himself in the criminal underworld.


In a Bhutan prison, he is approached by Henri Ducard, who recruits him to the League of Shadows, led by Ra's al Ghul. The League believes Gotham is beyond saving and intends to destroy it. After completing his training, Bruce rejects the League and its mandate that killing is necessary. He escapes, burning down their temple in the process. Ra's is killed by falling debris, while Bruce saves the unconscious Ducard. Intent on fighting crime, Bruce returns to Gotham and takes an interest in his family's company, Wayne Enterprises, which is being taken public by businessman William Earle. Company archivist Lucius Fox, a friend of Bruce's father, allows him access to prototype defense technologies, including a protective bodysuit and the Tumbler, an armored vehicle. Bruce poses publicly as a shallow playboy while setting up a base in the caves beneath Wayne Manor and taking up the vigilante identity of "Batman," inspired by his childhood fear, which he has now conquered.


Intercepting a drug shipment, Batman provides Rachel, now a Gotham Assistant District Attorney, with evidence against Falcone and enlists Sergeant James Gordon, one of Gotham's few honest police officers, to arrest him. In prison, Falcone meets Dr. Jonathan Crane, a corrupt psychologist who smuggled drugs into Gotham with his help. Donning a scarecrow mask, Crane sprays Falcone with a fear-inducing hallucinogen, driving him insane and transferring him to Arkham Asylum. While investigating Crane, Batman is ambushed by him and sprayed with the hallucinogen. Batman barely escapes and is saved by Alfred and Fox, who develop an antidote for the hallucinogen.


When Rachel accuses Crane of corruption, he reveals he has introduced his drug into Gotham's water supply and drugs her with the hallucinogen. Batman later subdues Crane and sprays him with his own chemical. While being interrogated, Crane claims to work for Ra's al Ghul. Batman evades the police to get Rachel to safety and administers the antidote. He gives her two vials: one for Gordon and the other for mass production. At Bruce's birthday party, Ducard reappears and reveals himself to be the true Ra's al Ghul. Having stolen a powerful microwave emitter from Wayne Enterprises, he plans to vaporize Gotham's water supply, rendering Crane's drug airborne and causing mass hysteria that will destroy the city. He sets Wayne Manor aflame and leaves Bruce to die, but Alfred rescues him. Ra's loads the emitter onto Gotham's monorail train to release the drug at the city's central water source. Batman rescues Rachel from a drugged mob and reveals his identity to her. He confronts Ra's on the train as Gordon uses the Tumbler's cannons to destroy a section of the track. Batman escapes the train and leaves Ra's to die as it crashes.


Bruce gains Rachel's respect. However, she refuses to be with him, promising they can be together when Gotham no longer needs Batman. Batman becomes a public hero. After purchasing a controlling stake in Wayne Enterprises, Bruce fires Earle and replaces him with Fox. Sergeant Gordon is promoted to Lieutenant, shows Batman the Bat-Signal, and tells him about a criminal who leaves behind Joker playing cards.[a] Batman promises to look into it and disappears into the night.

Christian Bale

[5]

as Alfred Pennyworth:
A trusted butler to Bruce's parents, who continues his loyal service to their son after their deaths as his closest confidant. Nolan offered the role to Anthony Hopkins but he declined.[28][29] Nolan went to Caine's country home to personally deliver him the script, telling what his role would be and describing Alfred as "Batman's godfather".[30] Nolan felt Caine would effectively portray the foster father element of the character.[22] Although Alfred is depicted in the film as having served the Wayne family for generations, Caine created his own backstory, in that before becoming Wayne's butler, Alfred served in the Special Air Service. After being wounded, he was invited to the position of the Wayne family butler by Thomas Wayne because, "He wanted a butler, but someone a bit tougher than that, you know?"[31]

Michael Caine

as Henri Ducard / Ra's al Ghul:
The leader of the League of Shadows, an ancient society that uses chaos to punish the corrupt and decadent, who goes undercover as an associate of the League and trains Bruce in martial arts, later revealing himself in the film's climax. Writer David Goyer said he felt he was the most complex of all the Batman villains, comparing him to Osama bin Laden; "He's not crazy in the way that all the other Batman villains are. He's not bent on revenge; he's actually trying to heal the world. He's just doing it by very draconian means."[32] Gary Oldman was first choice for the part, but ended up playing James Gordon instead.[33] Guy Pearce, who collaborated with Christopher Nolan on Memento (2000), reported that the pair had discussions about him playing the role, but both of them decided that he was too young for the part.[34] Viggo Mortensen was also considered for the role.[35] Neeson is commonly cast as a mentor, so the revelation that his character was the main villain was intended to shock viewers.[22]

Liam Neeson

Katie Holmes

[36]

as James "Jim" Gordon:
One of the few uncorrupted Gotham City police officers, who is on duty the night of the murder of Bruce's parents and, in this way, shares a special bond with the adult Bruce and thus with Batman. Oldman was Nolan's first choice for Ra's al Ghul,[33] but when Chris Cooper turned down the part of Gordon to spend time with his family[37] Nolan decided that it would be refreshing for Oldman, who is renowned for his portrayals of villains, to play the role instead.[38] "I embody the themes of the movie which are the values of family, courage and compassion and a sense of right and wrong, good and bad and justice," Oldman said of his character. He filmed most of his scenes in Britain.[39] Goyer said Oldman heavily resembled Gordon as drawn by David Mazzucchelli in Batman: Year One.[22]

Gary Oldman

as Dr. Jonathan Crane / Scarecrow:
A corrupt psychopharmacologist working as Chief Administrator of Arkham Asylum. A specialist in the psychology of fear, he has secretly created a fear-inducing toxin and plots with Ra's al Ghul to expose the entire Gotham population. Nolan decided against casting an Irish actor like Murphy for Batman, before casting him as Scarecrow.[40] Murphy read numerous comics featuring the Scarecrow and discussed making the character look less theatrical with Nolan. Murphy explained, "I wanted to avoid the Worzel Gummidge look, because he's not a very physically imposing man – he's more interested in the manipulation of the mind and what that can do."[41]

Cillian Murphy

as Carmine Falcone:
The most powerful Mafia boss in Gotham, who shares a prison cell with Joe Chill after he murdered Bruce's parents. Later, after having Chill murdered for his decision to testify against their relationship, he goes into business with Dr. Jonathan Crane and Ra's al Ghul by smuggling in Crane's fear toxins through his drug shipments over the course of several months so that they can be mixed in with the city's water supply.

Tom Wilkinson

as William Earle:
The CEO of Wayne Enterprises, who takes the company public in Bruce's long-term absence.

Rutger Hauer

as decoy Ra's al Ghul:
A member of the League of Shadows assigned to impersonate Ra's al Ghul during Bruce's training.

Ken Watanabe

as Lucius Fox:[22]
A high-ranking Wayne Enterprises employee demoted to working in the company's Applied Science Division, where he conducts advanced studies in biochemistry and mechanical engineering and supplies Bruce with much of the gear necessary to carry out Batman's mission. He is promoted to CEO when Bruce takes control of the company by the end of the film.

Morgan Freeman

Other cast members include Mark Boone Junior as Arnold Flass, Gordon's corrupt partner; Linus Roache as Thomas Wayne, Bruce's late father; Larry Holden as district attorney Carl Finch; Colin McFarlane as Gillian B. Loeb, the police commissioner; Christine Adams as Jessica, William Earle's secretary; Vincent Wong as an old Asian prisoner; Sara Stewart as Martha Wayne, Bruce's late mother; Richard Brake as Joe Chill, the Waynes' killer; Gerard Murphy as the corrupt High Court Judge Faden; Charles Edwards as a Wayne Enterprises executive; Tim Booth as Victor Zsasz; Rade Šerbedžija as a homeless man, who is the last person to meet Bruce when he leaves Gotham City, and the first civilian to see Batman, Risteárd Cooper and Andrew Pleavin as uniformed policemen, Jo Martin as a police prison official, and Shane Rimmer and Jeremy Theobald (the star and co-producer of Nolan's 1998 film Following) as Gotham Water Board technicians. Jack Gleeson, who had previously co-starred with Bale in 2002's Reign of Fire and later found fame for his role as Joffrey Baratheon in the HBO series Game of Thrones, appears as a young admirer of Batman who is later saved by him from Ra's al Ghul's men; Gleeson was cast at Bale's recommendation. Actors John Foo, Joey Ansah, Spencer Wilding, Dave Legeno, Khan Bonfils, Mark Strange, Grant Guirey, Rodney Ryan and Dean Alexandrou portray members of the League of Shadows. Hayden Nickel made his acting debut portraying James Gordon Jr.

Special effects and design

Design

Nolan used the 1982 science fiction film Blade Runner as a source of inspiration for Batman Begins. He screened Blade Runner to Pfister and two others to show the attitude and style that he wanted to draw from the film. Nolan described the film's world as "an interesting lesson on the technique of exploring and describing a credible universe that doesn't appear to have any boundaries", a lesson that he applied to the production of Batman Begins.[61]


Nolan worked with production designer Nathan Crowley to create the look of Gotham City. Crowley built a model of the city that filled Nolan's garage.[55] Crowley and Nolan designed it as a large, modern metropolitan area that would reflect the various periods of architecture that the city had gone through. Elements were drawn from New York City, Chicago, and Tokyo; the latter for its elevated freeways and monorails. The Narrows was based on the slummish nature of the (now demolished) walled city of Kowloon in Hong Kong.[62]

Reception

Box office

Batman Begins ranked at the top in its opening weekend, accumulating $48 million, which was seen as "strong but unimpressive by today's instantaneous blockbuster standards".[85] The film's five-day gross was $72.9 million, beating Batman Forever (1995) as the franchise high. Batman Begins also broke the five-day opening record in the 55 IMAX theaters, grossing $3.16 million. Polled moviegoers rated the film with an A, and according to the studio's surveys, Batman Begins was considered the best of all the Batman films. The audience's demographic was 57 percent male and 54 percent people over the age of 25.[85]


The film held its top spot for another weekend, accumulating $28 million in a 43 percent drop from its first weekend.[86] Batman Begins went on to gross $205 million in North America and had a worldwide total of $371.8 million from its original release.[3] It earned $1.6 million more from its 2012 re-release, bringing its lifetime worldwide total to $373.4 million. It is the fourth-highest-grossing Batman film, as of August 2012, behind Tim Burton's Batman, which grossed $411 million worldwide and also being surpassed by its sequels The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, both of which have grossed over $1 billion.[87] Batman Begins averaged $12,634 per theater in its opening weekend.[3] It was released in more theaters, but sold fewer tickets than the other previous Batman movies, with the exception of Batman & Robin.[87] Batman Begins was the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2005 in the United States.[88]

Critical response

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives Batman Begins an approval rating of 85% based on 291 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Brooding and dark, but also exciting and smart, Batman Begins is a film that understands the essence of one of the definitive superheroes."[89] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating reviews, the film received an average score of 70 out of 100, based on 41 critics, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".[90] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[91][85]

Themes

Comic book writer and author Danny Fingeroth argues that a strong theme in the film is Bruce's search for a father figure, saying "[Alfred] is the good father that Bruce comes to depend on. Bruce's real father died before they could establish an adult relationship, and Liam Neeson's Ducard is stern and demanding, didactic and challenging, but not a father figure with any sympathy. If Bruce is anyone's son, he is Alfred's. [Morgan] Freeman's Lucius is cool and imperturbable, another steady anchor in Bruce's life."[139] Blogger Mark Fisher states that Bruce's search for justice requires him to learn from a proper father figure, with Thomas Wayne and Ra's al Ghul being the two counterpoints. Alfred provides a maternal figure of unconditional love, despite the overall lack of focus on a mother figure in Bruce's life.[140]


Fingeroth also argues that a major theme in the film is fear, which supports the story of Bruce Wayne becoming a hero. Director Christopher Nolan stated that the idea behind the film was "a person who would confront his innermost fear and then attempt to become it". Fingeroth referred to this film's depiction as "the man with fear—but who rises above it". The theme of fear is further personified by the Scarecrow.[139] The film depicts how fear can affect all creatures regardless of might. Allusions to fear are seen throughout, from Bruce's conquering of his demons, to becoming Batman, to the Scarecrow and his deadly fear toxin. The macabre, distorted images presented in the Scarecrow's toxin-induced hallucinations also express the idea of terror to an extreme.[141]


Critic Brian Orndorf considered Batman Begins "fierce" and "demonstrative in brood", giving the film an abundance of gravitas and energy. It strays away from the lighter fare of Joel Schumacher's 1997 Batman film, Batman & Robin, which contained camp one-liners throughout. The theme of fear is intensified with the help of the musical score by Zimmer and Howard, which also "eschews traditional heroic themes".[141] Also contrary to previous Batman films, a psychological investigation of Bruce Wayne's split personality in the bat suit is only lightly touched upon. Orndorf noted that Bruce is a "character constantly striving to do the right thing, not worn down by incessant reexamination".[141]

Vigilante film

Neo-noir

– A 1994 superhero film based on the character that partially inspired Batman with a similar storyline of an American millionaire being trained in the East to fight crime

The Shadow

List of films shot in Iceland

(Warner Bros.)

Official website

(DC Comics)

Official website

at IMDb

Batman Begins

title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Batman Begins

at the TCM Movie Database

Batman Begins

at AllMovie

Batman Begins

at the American Film Institute Catalog

Batman Begins

at Curlie

Batman Begins

and pages 2–6. Warner Bros. via CinemaReview.com. Archived from the original Archived August 18, 2014, at the Wayback Machine on September 9, 2015.

Batman Begins Production Notes, page 1

on HBO Max

Batman Begins