Batman begins

There never will be a movie like this.  A movie which on first look I hated and on second look absolutely loved.  At one point in the movie, Bruce Wayne, the billionaire protagonist tells his childhood friend that I am not what I seem to be, deep underneath there is more to me..  That is true about this movie as well.  I remember watching this movie at Sreedhar in Kochi and cursing Tracer bullet who had goaded me to watch it.  He had seen it once, but still had some doubts and being a die-hard batman fan that he is, had lured me (a die-hard spidey fan) into watching this movie.  There was some problem with the audio, I believe, because I could not make out most of the dialogues.  My other concern was that I came to see a caped hero who made his entry only at the interval and there also his fights were not clear...I could not see him throwing one solid punch....what the hell.....but all these points are where this movie scores heavy brawny points compared to any other such movie.  It is not just about the man, it is about an idea, about instilling fear, fear in the minds of those who do crime.  Chris Nolan's Batman growls and snarls when he becomes the dark knight, although Bruce Wayne is all style, pomp, and show off.  And all this can be felt only if one knows about the character and if he at least understands the way story moves forward.  The director has chosen nonlinear story telling, which I think confused me a lot on the first viewing, but which nicely explained everything on second view. 


Batman is a very old character, i.e. he was published first in the 1930s.  Although the reason for Bruce Wayne becoming batman has always been the same in different stories, i.e. he witnessed his parents death as a kid, the dark sombre mood which should underlie such a character was absent till the 1980s when Frank Miller and later Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale etc completely turned around the character and made him what he is today.


Similarly, all Batman movies (may be Tim Burton's may have been an exception) were just costume dramas which told the story of a billionaire playboy, who used to wear a mask and becomes a vigilante by night thrashing goons and lumpen elements on the street.  Why was he doing that, night after night, what drove him, his paranoia, his fierce determination, the trauma which he turned into a crusade against crime....all this has been captured brilliantly only by Chris Nolan in Batman Begins and needless to say I have lost count of  how much times I have watched this movie.  Thanks Tracer for all the goading that day....;-)