[Sam The Egg]

Review of the script *SPOILER WARNING!!!!!*

from aint-it-cool-news.com

Nordling here.

I didn't like the title BATMAN BEGINS at first. It felt, and still feels in a way, clunky. INTIMIDATION GAME didn't sound exactly right either. What to call the movie that sets the Batman film saga right back to square one? The film that wipes the slate clean, from not only the cinematic abortion that was BATMAN AND ROBIN, but even Tim Burton's two films? Having thought it over and after reading the script, BATMAN BEGINS is the best possible title, and it sets the franchise off to a terrific start, with so much potential that fanboys will need to wear raincoats to the theater, so overcome with orgasmic joy will they be.

I don't know what Christopher Nolan will bring to the film, but his sense in casting is dead on perfect. The actors that have been cast fit their parts perfectly.

As far as the previous Batman films, only the first one feels like it's anything approaching good to me, and even that film feels sloppy. Nothing against Prince, but his musical interludes didn't work, and like Bruce says in the original film, some of BATMAN is very much Tim Burton, and some of it isn't. Well, the first film also doesn't come close to the angst and power that the character has, the darkness and tragedy in Bruce Wayne that compels the fans to follow his story again and again.

This is the part without spoilers. If you don't want to read any, cut loose after this paragraph... but feel comforted that for the first time, they got it right. Not the TV show. Not the films we've seen so far. This feels like Batman, and it brings the franchise to a point where anything is possible. All the characters you know and love are treated well and fairly, and if Superman gets this treatment, maybe the WB won't be the ire of fanboys everywhere. With this script, I feel that Warner Brothers is on the right track with this character, and I can't wait to see the sequel to THIS particular Batman film.

Spoilers below...

First off, there are ninjas. Just to get that out of the way. Ninjas, who kick ass.

We begin, as the screeching of bats and the darkness of wings gives way to sunlight, in a garden. A girl, RACHEL, is running from a boy, BRUCE WAYNE. As they hide from the Wayne Manor staff, they are two children at play, until Bruce falls through an abandoned well in the back kitchen garden. Bruce falls into blackness.

His eyes open in a Bhutanese prison, as Bruce (Christian Bale), now 28, serves his time. He spends his days fighting the other prisoners. He is drifting through his life. Six prisoners start a fight, and Bruce methodically takes them down, until the guards put Bruce in solitary confinement for the other prisoners's protection. In his cell, a voice speaks out. It is DUCARD (Liam Neeson), a servant of RA'S AL GHUL (Ken Watanabe), offering to teach Bruce the skills of the League of Shadows, if he passes their tests. He offers him something he has been looking for for a long time: purpose.

We all know the story of Batman - Bruce Wayne fights crime to avenge his parents' death - but David Goyer puts us right in the middle of it this time. No mere flashback for us - we are taken through the ordeal that Bruce suffers and feels guilty over. If Bruce hadn't been frightened at the play they went to see that night, if he hadn't begged his parents to leave, their deaths by Joe Chill (yes, NOT the Joker, but the original killer of the comics, and I'm thankful that got remedied) might have been avoided. He feels responsible to a fault, and he travels the world, in self-destructive behavior.

Bruce travels to the Himalayas to train with Ducard and Ra's Al Ghul's League of Shadows. Imagine a ninja sword duel with Batman versus Qui-Gon Jinn. Yes, I sense the fanboy stiffies sprouting now. It's a kickass fight as written, and I'm confident that Nolan will make it pop on screen. Through out the training ordeals that Bruce goes through, he learns to live with his fears - his fears of bats due to his fall in his youth, his fear of loss, his fear of the knowledge that he may have been responsible for his parents' death. He learns the value of masks. And at the end, he is offered membership... for a price. The League of Shadows isn't some altruistic group out to save the world, but to destroy it. Ra's Al Ghul tells Bruce that he wants to destroy Gotham, and through what they have taught him, he will be the one to do it. Bruce refuses, and there is a fight with many ninjas (!!!). Ra's Al Ghul is killed in an explosion, but Bruce saves Ducard's life. With that act, he is ready to begin. He calls ALFRED (Michael Caine) to have him picked up, and Bruce starts to pick up the pieces of his life.