Batman Begins (2005)

Cast your mind back to where Batman had been left. The franchise had been driven into a ditch, wheels spinning, by a series of increasingly bizarre creative decisions that turned one of comics' darkest figures into a neon-lit panto villain. So to get Batman Begins after all that, a film that's genuinely dark, grounded and interested in who Bruce Wayne actually is as a person, is nothing short of impressive.

Christopher Nolan came into this with serious form. I'd already seen what he could do with Memento and Insomnia, so handing him the keys to Gotham made a certain kind of sense in hindsight. He treats the material like a crime drama that happens to have a man dressed as a bat at its centre, and that instinct is exactly what the franchise needed. This doesn't feel like a comic book cartoon. It feels lived-in, weighted, and genuinely moody in a way the character deserved.

Christian Bale deserves a lot of credit here. His Bruce Wayne is haunted and focused, with a coiled, believable intensity that sells the idea that this is a man pushed to the absolute edge of himself. There's something slightly unhinged behind his eyes even when he's playing the playboy billionaire facade, and that tension carries the whole origin story. The supporting cast only adds to it. Michael Caine is pitch-perfect as Alfred, warm without being soft. Liam Neeson brings genuine gravitas and a quiet menace. And then there's Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow, who is, frankly, delightfully creepy and should have been given more room to breathe. My honest feeling is he should have been the main villain. He's underused in a way that frustrates me every time I watch it.

The pacing is where the film wobbles most. The first half drags at points, spending a lot of time in the training and mythology-building that, while necessary, doesn't always crackle with energy. And the third act tips over into fairly standard blockbuster mayhem, which is a slight disappointment after the more grounded texture of what came before. Nolan is clearly more comfortable in the shadows than in the spectacle, and the film is better for every moment it stays there.

What Batman Begins gets absolutely right is Gotham itself. The city feels like a character again, corrupt and crumbling and genuinely dangerous, rather than a production design exercise in primary colours. The tone is calibrated just right throughout, sombre without being joyless, serious without disappearing up its own mythology. It's a proper reset.

Does it reach the heights of what came next? No. The Dark Knight is a different beast entirely, one of the finest films the superhero genre has ever produced, and Batman Begins can't quite match it. But that's a comparison that's hardly fair to make. Judged on its own terms, this is a rock-solid origin story that gave Batman his grit back and laid the foundation for something genuinely special. If you'd told anyone sitting through the late '90s Batman films that this was coming, they wouldn't have believed you. That alone is worth something.

Three and a half stars.

Rating: ★★★½  | Year: 2005  | Watched: 2025-04-06

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
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More from Christopher Nolan: Insomnia (2002) · The Prestige (2006) · Inception (2010) · Memento (2000)
More with Christian Bale: American Psycho (2000) · Ford v Ferrari (2019) · Equilibrium (2002) · The Prestige (2006)
More from United Kingdom: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) · Blue (1993)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
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