Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

In an effort to escape that 90+ degree weather choking Boston today, a friend and I went to the air conditioned movies to see Batman Begins. The verdict? It’s good. Great, in fact.

It’s hard to place Batman Begins in the larger film chronology. On the one hand it acts as a prequel, giving us a little insight into how Bruce got his batmobiles and biceps in shape in the years prior to the first Batman film, while at the same time trying to keep all five films internally consistent.

On the other hand, Begins comes off like something entirely separate from the rest of the series. It tosses the over-the-top Schumacher garbage in favor of something much closer to Tim Burton’s tone for the first two films, stylized but plausibly real (perhaps even more real than Burton). Likewise, the villians have the polished look of comic books without getting zapped by the NOW IN COLOR Gun. The movie re-introduces Batman’s origins and philosophy by focusing on the hero himself, something that hasn’t really been the case since the original Batman, and God damn, is it refreshing. Ever since Batman Returns, Bruce Wayne has felt like little more than a wooden plot device to move the camera toward rubber-nippled, candy colored suits. Here, he feels like a person, given strong but complicated motivation that elegantly explains just about every aspect of the Batman persona.

My one quibble is Katie Holmes. Katie, what are you doing here? Bruce Wayne never had a childhood girly-friend. Moreover, why is Katie Holmes pretending that she’s Gotham’s assistant D.A.? Man in a cape and cowl gliding around a huge city to protect the innocent from genocidal villians I can buy, but Katie Holmes (who looks like she could still get cast in the first season of Dawson’s Creek) as an idealistic yet tough as nails attorney, I can’t buy. Luckily, she’s not on screen all that much, so I’m all the more miffed that her sudden engagement to ravenous homosexual Tom Cruise is overshadowing Christian Bale’s excellent performance as Bruce Wayne.

Overall, Batman Begins is great. It’s a surprisingly complex ride that rewards fans of the Caped Crusader while still standing on its own as great storytelling. You could take it as part of the existing series or hope, as I do, that this marks a reworking of the whole Batman franchise (though I doubt they’d ever dare to touch Jack Nicholson as the Joker, I mean, come on). Either way, go and see it.