Apparently Batman’s 85 years old this year, so my local cinema is showing a few films to commemorate the occasion. Here are a couple I rewatched from my favourite film trilogy of all time.
Batman Begins
Christopher Nolan’s bold entry into the Batman universe, and one that definitely paid off with its dark tone. Gone with the camp, in with the gritty. That’s not a recognised phrase, but anyway.
Christian Bale’s weight gain for the role was an impressive feat in itself, but doubly so when you consider that he put that all on after shedding an unhealthy number of pounds after his role in The Machinist. He was apparently at 121 pounds for that, and by the time he’d bulked up for Batman, he was at 240 pounds. Heck. I guess I achieved a miniature version of that in the other direction when I put on a decent bit of weight as a side effect of some steroids I had to take to stop my brain tumour swelling. After a big operation and a decent dose of chemotherapy I could hold down next to nothing for about six weeks, so I lost all of that flab and a fair bit more. Anyway, not comparable, but I can at least empathise with that unhealthy weight fluctuation. Moving on.
Beyond Bale (BB?), this was also the movie that introduced me to super scary stylish sexy Cillian Murphy. Those eyes. Whoa. He made a pretty convincing Scarecrow (no rhyme intended). His icy villain uses some weird tech during a scene to release a form of gas that makes the inhaler go a bit crazy. Apparently during my first viewing of this film at the Vue cinema in Reading all those years ago, I managed to release my own brand of toxic gas in the cinema arena at pretty much the same time. I can neither confirm nor deny these rumours, but if I did, I’d say I was ahead of the game in developing realistic 4D effects. A pungent odour, as Ron Burgundy might say.
Michael Caine also makes his debut role here as Bruce Wayne’s loyal butler Alfred Pennyworth, one of his finest roles in his filmography. Sure, he doesn’t have the longest screentime, but he gets in some killer lines, and it’s always fun to hear him say the word ‘bloody’, which he practically owns at this point. Liam Neeson’s big bad is also great, even though it’s hard to see the actor without thinking of the Taken speech. It’s a smart move to show Bruce Wayne’s training in the criminal underworld across the hemisphere rather than just going straight for an insular Gotham narrative, grounding the antihero in a realistic setting. The pace is handled expertly throughout, juggling the obligatory origin story and the present-day Wayne with a poignant ease. While Hans Zimmer might take all the fame for the trilogy’s soaring soundtrack, it’s worth noting that co-composer James Newton-Howard was responsible for some of the big emotional hard hitters in this first promising trilogy entry.
The Dark Knight
And now for the big one. I saw this at the cinema six times when it was initially released, and every watch was worth it. I’ve seen it multiple times since then, and the effect never diminishes. Heck, I even watched it when I was in hospital and it was still great. Is it dark? Sure. That’s in the title, friend. The Dark Knight set the standard for the darker sequel, a standard which was copied in other superhero films but never mattered. It’s also a rare example of a superhero film where the villain wins, and a major character is killed off. What’s that? Avengers: Infinity War, you say? Pah. Sure, it was brave to ‘kill off’ half of the big superheroes at the end, but come on. You knew they’d be coming back in the next one. And yeah, a couple did stay dead, but the emotional impact just wasn’t as big. The multiverse gimmick in the MCU has also just opened up the slightly dull idea that a character could just come back anywhere, any time, but just as a ‘different version’.
There’s no sense of jeopardy in those scenarios. But the choice to kill off Rachel in The Dark Knight was a bold one. It broke the Bat (well, not literally. Bane’s gonna come along and sort that shiz out in a mo) and made Bruce Wayne a different man. It also created the origin of Two Face, Harvey Dent’s alter ego played by Aaron Eckhart is his finest role. After losing the love of his life, Dent’s path of vengeance completes the process of chaos that The Joker has been planning all along, with the soul of Gotham lost to murder and corruption. Also, props to the make-up department for Two Face’s visuals. That stuff’s scary. And props to the filmmakers in general for creating the only two instances so far where I’ve genuinely been jumped scared in a movie theatre (1. When the fake batman corpse hits the glass, 2. When Harvey Dent/Two Face shouts SAY IT at Gordon when he’s in the hospital). That’s impressive stuff.
And as for the Joker, well, enough has been written about how great Ledger’s performance is. The Dark Knight clearly refers to the protagonist (mentioned brilliantly in the last line of Gordon’s kick-ass monologue), but we all know it’s Gotham’s clown prince that steals the show, whether he’s throwing shade at mob bosses, sardonically clapping in a prison cell or just shooting the breeze as he leans out of a mobile police car. Every last little gesture is performed with gusto, especially during rare improvised moments like The Joker’s bemusement when Gotham General fails to completely blow up at the command of his remote control (this was a general hitch with the controls that Ledger took advantage of). Bleak, bold and endlessly brilliant, this superhero sequel hasn’t been topped in the 16 years since its release.
As for The Dark Knight Rises? Unfortunately, that showing interferes with holiday plans. But that’s no big problem at the end of the day, because Cineworld couldn’t match the hype I felt at going to see it back in the day at a preview screening in IMAX format. Just facts, I’m afraid.