Into the Blu

Batman Begins

Posted on 17. Nov, 2008 by Brian White in 1080p, 2.40:1, Action, Dolby Digital 5.1 (English), Dolby Digital 5.1 (French), Dolby Digital 5.1 (Spanish), Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (English), Reviews, VC-1, Warner Bros.

Before I begin (no pun intended), I need a quick moment to reflect upon a disclaimer I need to make. If it were not for on-screen onslaught of The Dark Knight, I don’t think I would have given Batman Begins the much needed respect and appreciation it deserves. I think I need to be brutally honest here for a moment. Batman Begins is an origin story so if you have not seen it, do not go in with the expectations that it is going to be one of the greatest high-adrenaline action movies you have ever seen because you will be greatly disappointed. Instead, you need to appreciate the movie for what it really is. What is that, you might ask? It is a slick vehicle to introduce to the world who the Batman really is. Batman is not just a man in a masked costume going around fighting loud and ludicrous villains. Batman is a human being just like any of us and suffers from some of the same fears and desperations that plague the lives of all ordinary people. When you strip the Batman character down to bare bones you realize that he is simply a man driven by a fear that severely haunts him and his only way of escaping that binding fear, to fight crime and injustice, is by sharing it with his enemies. How does one do that? You do that by becoming a symbol…by becoming more than just a man. This is the psychological journey we are treated to and undertake in Batman Begins. Don’t think of this as simply another comic book movie, but instead treat it like you would any good psychological thriller. There is always an underlying reason for a man’s actions, which ultimately defines who he is. In hindsight, we finally get to walk on the red carpet by seeing what exactly makes Bruce Wayne tick. We get to witness what drives him into becoming the only hope that Gotham City has. Gotham City needs to be saved from the underworld clutches of the world’s most dangerous villains and criminals. This ladies and gentleman, is the story of Batman Begins.

The film opens with eight-year old Bruce Wayne having accidentally just fallen into a cave while playing with his best friend, Rachel Dawes. Helpless and injured young Bruce Wayne has a frightful yet fateful encounter with bats. He grows more fearful of bats every passing day as his nightmares haunt him and extinguish his sleep. Then came the dark night (again no pun intended) that changed young Bruce’s life forever. While attending an opera with his parents, Bruce becomes frightened at the actors portraying bats. Cognitive of Bruce’s frightened state, his parents agree to take him home. Outside the opera house, Bruce’s parents are robbed and shot down in cold blood by a thug named Joe Chill. Having witnessed this seditious and tragic act of violence, Bruce blames himself for his parents’ untimely demise.

Many years go by as a more mature Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) returns home to Wayne Manor from Princeton University, with intent to kill Joe Chill who is being arraigned for a possible early release. His childhood friend, Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes), who is now an attorney herself, accompanies him to the trial. Before Bruce can act on his plan of revenge, an unidentified woman kills Joe Chill for the crime lord Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson). Angered and feeling cheated that he did not get to complete his act of selfish vengeance, Bruce Wayne decides to confront Carmine Falcone. This is where one of my favorite lines of the movie comes to fruition. Carmine Falcone lectures Bruce that he does not understand the nature of crime and that he should be thankful that he killed his parent’s murderer. The most memeorable line comes when Carmine starts pointing out all the lawyers, cops and politicians in the restaurant they are in and how he could fire his gun upon Bruce Wayne without hesitation or anyone questioning the act of him doing so. He tells Bruce that this is power you just cannot buy. I may have mixed some words around but I think you get the point. This is serious stuff here people!

Bruce, at this point, is just disgusted at the injustice and current state of Gotham City ruled by corrupt politicians, police officers and criminal organizations. He decides to travel the world to understand the criminal mind. He learns what its like to live without money and to steal just to feed and clothe himself over a seven-year length of time. Ultimately, he ends up imprisoned and meets Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson). Ducard invites Bruce to train and eventually join the extremist vigilante group, the League of Shadows led by Ra’s al Ghul, dedicated to ridding the world of criminal activity and declining civilizations. During his rigorous martial arts and mental training sessions with Ducard and the members of the League of Shadows, Bruce learns to embrace his fear of bats by utilizing it to fight crime and putting fear into the wrongdoers he intends to stop. The final test comes when Bruce is ordered to execute a criminal and he must decide between what he feels is the right and what is the wrong kind of justice. Upon being ordered to carry out the execution of this prisoner, Bruce finally realizes that the League’s conflicting extremist views do not align with what he feels justice truly should be. As a result, he ends up burning down the temple and defeating Ra’s al Ghul…so he thinks. I told you this film was deep, didn’t I?

Back in Gotham City, things are worse than ever. Gotham City is now pretty much under the corruption and control of Falcone. Bruce Wayne declares war against the corruption that infiltrates Gotham City. Bruce returns back to the loving care and guidance of his family’s trusted butler, Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine), who has taking care and presiding over all of Bruce’s affairs while he has been gone. Bruce manages to re-establish his connections to his father’s company, Wayne Enterprises, which is about to go public. It is there that he is introduced to a former board member, Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), who now heads the research and development department. Secretly, Bruce uses Lucius’ knowledge and gadgets to acquire not only suit armor and weaponry, but also the Tumbler, a prototype armored car, which will replace what legacy Batman fans always refer to as the Batmobile. Back at Wayne Manor, with the help of Alfred, Bruce constructs the Batcave and ultimately his alter ego…the Batman. When asked why bats, Bruce responds because he is afraid of them and wants his opponents to share in that fear. The rest ladies and gentlemen…is what they call history. I hope I have given you enough to whet your appetite for what will eventually become a baptism by fire for the Batman as he ventures out to rid Gotham City of corruption and spread his own kind of justice. Of course you can expect a few major villains to go bump in the night and try to foil the Dark Knight’s crusade to save Gotham City. Who will ultimately prevail? I guess you will need to watch and find out because the path through Batman Begins only leads to bigger and better things…The Dark Knight.

Batman Begins ultimately became a critical and commercial success. The film eventually grossed more than $370 million worldwide. While not really being a big fan of Chris Nolan’s prior films, I was somewhat judgmental when I heard he was helming the reboot of the Batman franchise. I personally felt it was way too soon after the failure of the last Batman movie in 1997. I now hang my head in embarrassment and admit how truly wrong I was. Chris Nolan not only resurrected the Batman franchise but has also paved a trend for many more superhero movies to follow. If you keep up with entertainment and movie news like I do, then you will know what I am talking about. Just about every news article I read about future superhero movies talk about how the producers and writers are taking cues from Christopher Nolan’s darker version of Batman. Let’s face it…there has to be a serious issue or deep underlying reason why a person wants to become a superhero and Christopher Nolan explores and dissects this theory by making the audience not only care for the Batman but also for his alter identity, Bruce Wayne. Now if that is not deeply psychologically rooted, then I don’t know what is. This is not a film for the kiddies. They just won’t understand the psychosis of everything involved. Like I said before, the journey that Christopher Nolan has created only gets better as you going along.

Video

Like the HD DVD release, Warner Bros. brings us a mirrored video transfer with a 1080P VC-1 video encode and a 2.40:1 widescreen aspect ratio. Unfortunately, here is where I start to digress and take the journey down the road of complaints. While the Blu-ray video transfer is leaps and bounds above the DVD release, it is nowhere close to the reference quality video many current Blu-ray discs portray. There are no problems with the resolution but throughout the entire feature, the colors seem somewhat muted and the image never has that three-dimensional pop that many of today’s Blu-rays exhibit. Some of the shots do look good but the majority of the film is very soft and almost feels as if it has a filter overlaid on top of the image because it almost never seems sharp. The flesh tones all seemed a bit pale to me as well. The good news is that grain is at an absolute minimum for a movie that is mostly dark and filmed in the shadows. From all the research I did, the softness of the film is of the director’s intent and this video transfer is identical to the HD DVD release. While this Blu-ray release may not be of reference quality video, this is definitely the finest High-Definition presentation of Batman Begins that is available and is truly a delicacy for die-hard fans. The only disappointment you will find here is when you take a glimpse of the reference quality IMAX prologue footage of The Dark Knight and then compare that to the video transfer of Batman Begins. Talk about the “wow” factor!

Audio

Like the video, it appears that Warner Bros. has also ported over the audio from the HD DVD release. The audio track of choice here is a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround mix. I have read and heard many conflicting reviews regarding the audio track of the Batman Begins Blu-ray disc. Some people say it is status quo and some same it is reference quality throughout. I fall somewhere in between those two points of view. While I feel the audio definitely has its moments, I would not be inclined to showcase this as a reference audio track. The dialogue is always clear and intelligible throughout the feature. The famous Hans Zimmer also treats us to another fine musical score. The low-end bass is superb during all the action scenes but I just can’t shake the feeling that the rest of the movie just sounds flat during non-action sequences to me. The Dolby TrueHD surround track sounds exactly like the audio track on the HD DVD release of Batman Begins. While the audio track here is nothing to sneer at, I just feel certain dynamics could have been fleshed out a bit more and improved upon. I am looking forward to hearing the audio quality of how The Dark Knight will sound on Blu-ray. I was blown away by the audio and all its subtle intricacies of The Dark Knight in the theatres and I sure hope I am not disappointed.

Special Features

If there was ever a reason for me to own the Blu-ray release of Batman Begins when I already own it on HD DVD, it was for the six heavenly minutes of The Dark Knight IMAX prologue footage. This is the “Holy Grail” of the Blu-ray release and makes the price of admission and owning the Batman Begins Blu-ray well worth it, even if you own it on two other different formats like myself. The Blu-ray release of Batman Begins was purposely released a week before the theatrical release of The Dark Knight and for many fans it was their first glimpse of the Oscar-worthy performance of Heath Ledger as the Joker. This is the first time in a long time in which I am excited about the extras. As a side note, just about every extra from the past HD DVD and DVD releases are included here. The only disappointing thing is that every special feature is in Standard Definition with the exception of the IMAX prologue and theatrical trailer.

The following are the full technical specs as published on the back of the Blu-ray cover art:

In-Movie Experience – (HD) This is the Picture-in-Picture track that delayed the Blu-ray release until the Profile 1.1 was finalized. This is basically a visual commentary with director Christopher Nolan and is joined by the main cast and production crewmembers through a variety of behind-the-scenes footage.

The Dark Knight IMAX Prologue – (HD) This is the entire first 6-minutes of the opening sequence. It is presented in pristine 1080P with a 1.80:1 aspect ratio. This sequence is reference quality and worth every penny.

Tankman Begins – (SD) This is a funny short skit created for the 2005 MTV Movie Awards.

Batman – The Journey Begins – (SD) This is a short 14-minute documentary on the casting process.

Shaping Mind and Body – (SD) This is a 13-minute documentary that shows the training that Christian Bale undertook for the role.

Gotham City Rises – (SD) This is a 13-minute look at the production team tasked with building the various Gotham City locations.

Cape and Cowl – (SD) This is an 8-minute look at the creation of the new Batsuit.

Batman – The Tumbler – (SD) Here is a 14-minute documentary about the creation and concepts of the new Batmobile.

Path to Discovery – (SD) This is a 14-minute look at the challenges the production crew faced in cold climate of Iceland.

Saving Gotham City – (SD) This is a 13-minute tribute to the filming of the action scenes and how they tried to use as little CGI as possible.

Genesis of the Bat – (SD) We get a 15-minute explanation from director Christopher Nolan and screenwriter David S. Goyer on how the film was conceived.

Still Gallery (SD) – The still gallery contains a collection of various advertising concepts for the film’s marketing around the world.

Theatrical Trailer – (HD) Don’t let this title fool you. This is only the teaser trailer and not the full theatrical trailer.

Final Thoughts

I guess one of the reasons I initially dismissed Batman Begins upon my first viewing in the theatre, was mainly for a lack of action that I was expecting rather than the psychological story I got. I can only figure that I must have got so numb from the previous Batman franchise that I was not expecting to have to do so much thinking. I was so use to the flashy and flamboyant villains that I did not know what to make of Batman Begins. I don’t want to be misunderstood. In no way did I think that Batman Begins was a bad movie. I just thought it was really different than what I was expecting to see and was amazed at how many fan boys came out of nowhere as a result of the darker Batman story. Then the month of July 2008 came around and my life changed forever. My initial viewing of The Dark Knight made Batman Begins mean so much more to me. I finally saw what I was missing all along in Batman Begins. The audience gets to dive head-first into the psychosis thinking of what is going through Bruce Wayne’s mind as we experience first hand his motivation, training and drive that culminated him into our favorite crime fighter…the Batman. What makes Batman unique is that under the mask and costume, Bruce Wayne is just an ordinary man with no superhuman powers except the ability to free his mind of any fear and devote himself to a higher mission in life…saving the lives of others. Batman is more than a man. He is a symbol. He is a symbol that criminals should fear. He uses this fear to clean up the streets of Gotham City. How brilliant is that?

If you are a Batman fan, then this is a no-brainer. I highly recommend the purchase of Batman Begins on Blu-ray. Not only do you get this brilliant movie, but you also get an advanced look at how The Dark Knight IMAX footage will look like on Blu-ray come December 9, 2008. It is a gorgeous sight to behold. There is no denying we will eventually see a double-dip of this movie sometime in the near future from Warner Bros., but there is no time like the present to enjoy this movie in the finest presentational format available now; the Blu-ray. We will reconvene this discussion in December 2008 with the Blu-ray release of The Dark Knight.