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Blu-ray Reviewer
Join Date: Jun 2008
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A DVD Replacement & Blast From the Past: BATMAN BEGINS (Warner/DC/Legendary)
NOTICE: ALTHOUGH THIS IS A RELATIVELY "OLD" TITLE THAT MOST EVERYONE HAS PROBABLY SEEN ALREADY, THERE ARE PLOT AND NARRATIVE ANALYSIS POINTS IN THE BELOW REVIEW. PLEASE TAKE NOTE, HIGH DEF FORUM MEMBERS, IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN BATMAN BEGINS EITHER THEATRICALLY OR ON ANY FORM OF HOME VIDEO, PARTS OF THE PLOT ARE REVEALED AND DISCUSSED BELOW. THANK YOU.
I realize this is a relatively old title, but as with Superman Returns, I received this as a gift this season to replace my DVD copy; and as with that aforementioned title, I feel this too really isn't that worth the "up-sell" to Blu-ray. However, in comparison to the differences between the Superman Returns DVD and Blu-ray, the differences here are greater.
What can be said about Chris Nolan's re-imagining and reinvention of the Batman franchise that hasn't already in absolutely countless home theater/film internet discussion boards, critics corners and breakfast tables around the world? While screenplay writer David S. Goyer awaits reception for his directorial release of The Unborn set to hit theaters this month, the material he utilized for Nolan in this reboot takes a much darker look at the Caped Crusader -- it was really all about his darker comic beginnings more than Tim Burton or Joel Schumacher ever brought to the screen. This was going to be an "underground Batman" for lack of a better term -- one that wasn't seen through Michael Keaton's portrayal, to say nothing of the jokes that were Val Kilmer or George Clooney. You wouldn't think Gotham City could get any darker than Burton painted on that celluloid canvas -- as is his style -- but Nolan absolutely dropped the bomb with his aptly titled Batman Begins, introducing a whole new generation of fans to the "Dark Knight" and his origins -- something that was mishandled and, quite frankly, completely missed with 1989's Batman which didn't even refer to the Crusader as "The Dark Knight."
Don't get me wrong -- I loved Burton's Batman and grew up on heavy doses of it. I even accepted Batman Returns and can remember thinking no one other than Danny De Vito could play a modern-day Penguin on the big screen. But while barely tolerable, I, like most fans, thought once Schumacher came on the scene and drenched the franchise in neon and plastic nipple suits in Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, the series was off track and lost. The casting choices of Val Kilmer and George Clooney as Wayne were completely and horrendously wrong, and the cartoonish, carnival-like set pieces and feel of those two films just didn't work. You would have thought Jim Carrey would have made a perfect Riddler -- but that too seemed to flop. I watch these films from time to time as I own the DVD box set of Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology with the remastered transfers and DTS audio, but when you watch Schumacher's last two against Burton's first two, the differences are staggering.
And so with the success of trend-setting titles in this genre -- cough cough Sam Raimi's Spider-Man -- Warner greenlighted an attempt to breathe new life into the Batman franchise by allowing Christopher Nolan to take the idea in a whole new direction; there wasn't going to be a "Batman and Robin" and the casting was going to be a much more serious approach to getting the looks right. Hence, Christian Bale seemed "right" for the cape. I never had a problem with Bale as Wayne, but I was one of the fans of the 1989 film that really liked Keaton in the role too -- I know he really didn't fit the comic character looks, but I thought he really had that "Batman sneer" that I call it down. Remember when he's holding up Nicholson in the beginning of Burton's film before he drops him into that vat of acid and as he's putting him down Nicholson goes "nice outfit..." and then Keaton does that "sneer" under the mask? I thought that was absolutely perfect.
With Bale at the lead, Batman Begins was this time going to tell the origin story a bit better -- but I think that too had some missing and changed elements in it as there are just so many interpretations of the comic's run. The stark difference between this and Burton's take was that Burton simply opened the film with Batman existing -- there was no Ninja training story, nothing about Ducard or Fox and Burton used a quick flashback sequence to explain the parents' deaths. Nolan was going to do it right for fans this time, explaining Wayne's "finding himself" across the world by becoming a thief and then being imprisoned, eventually being rescued by the mysterious Ducard (played by Liam Neeson) who then takes him under his wing to be trained by the League of Shadows -- a band of Ninja "vigilantes" of sorts that dish out vengeance across the world when they feel it's necessary. The beginning of Nolan's film flashes back and forth quite interestingly between Wayne as a child before his parents are murdered and then up until the murders and his training by Ducard at the League of Shadows temple. My knowledge of the comic origins is a bit hazy when it comes to Batman, so I am not quite sure if this is exactly how it went -- I have heard very conflicting stories about the authenticity of Nolan's whole approach here and later in the film when Ducard's plot for Gotham gets unveiled, so if there's anyone who can clear up just how authentic this film was to the Dark Knight comic origins, please share. There have also been questions surrounding the authenticity of the Wayne murders and how it's portrayed in both films; the parents were leaving an opera in Nolan's version but they were leaving a film in Burton's. Where in Burton's the criminal who becomes the Joker years later kills Bruce's parents, Nolan has a random thug by the name of Joe Chill shoot them during a robbery. These differences run rampant all throughout any of the comparisons you could do between these films, and I'll delve deeper into these as we go along.
At any rate, Bruce (Bale) escapes the temple after fighting for his life when Ducard and his master force him to do something he doesn't want to and a sword fight ensues; where Michael Gough played Alfred in the 1989 version, here Michael Caine plays him. Bruce returns to Gotham in the company jet Alfred flies over to pick him up in, and he already wants to use his new Ninja training as a symbol to fight crime in his city. The differences between the two visions of Gotham are interesting, too; Nolan envisions Gotham in Begins as a gloomy, rainy, dirty city as Burton did -- but it's far less cartoonish and "fake" looking as the 1989 film. In Nolan's follow up, The Dark Knight, I feel the city became too authentic for a comic book adaptation, but I am seriously in the minority on that one. Upon returning to Wayne Manor, Bruce finds the city in criminal chaos, with crime boss Carmine Falconi (played by Tom Wilkinson, The Patriot, Michael Clayton) running the underworld with villain Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy, Red Eye) on his payroll. It was refreshing to see the Scarecrow villain explored as the first enemy of Batman in this reboot, as it was never explored in any of the other films before it, but I'm not sure what to make of Murphy's portrayal of the character, who spends his nights gassing people with a toxin and scaring the shit out of them with his scarecrow mask while during the day he works as a lead psychiatrist at his Arkum Asylum. Without a doubt, the Joker introduction in The Dark Knight was tremendously more effective. And I have to ask...was that really Cillian Murphy with the scarecrow mask on in The Dark Knight when Batman rounds up those lookalike vigilantes?
Bruce also finds his father's company is now being headed by Rutger Hauer, who wants to take Wayne Enterprises public, along with Bruce's shares in the company. Bruce ends up looking into weaponry development, as his dreams of using his fear of bats as a hero symbol to fight crime grows, his father's company was building and meets Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) who helps him build his suit, mask and obtain the weapons he needs to become "Batman." This is another area in which I am not quite certain how accurate Nolan and team were making this in relation to the comic versions; how close was Fox to Bruce? Was he the one who helped him develop the weapons? None of this was explored by Burton in 1989. Inbetween, there is, of course, a love interest who comes in the form of Gotham's Assistant D.A., Rachel Dawes (played by Katie Holmes). Bruce and Rachel used to be friends when they were children, playing around the Wayne Manor grounds -- in an interesting opening sequence of the film, young Bruce falls into a well while playing with Rachel and discovers the cave full of bats below Wayne Manor...the cave that would eventually become the Batcave.
The plot gets a little convoluted and misguided at this point, as Holmes' character is attempting to put Falconi (Wilkinson) behind bars and she begins suspecting Murphy's psychiatrist character as being behind the criminals of Gotham being transferred from prison to his asylum. Meanwhile, Bruce has begun his reign as Batman, and we get to see the evolution of the character in Nolan's vision, as he struggles to perfect his weapons, his Ninja skills and creates the "Batmobile" of this version known as the "Tumbler." This is another area which is questionable -- in Burton's film, the Batmobile is the one we would envision leaping off the pages of the comic; some futuristic-looking supercar with missiles and fire exhaust. In Nolan's version, Lucius Fox unveils the Wayne Enterprises prototype terrain vehicle known as the Tumbler to Bruce, and Bruce modifies it to become his Batmobile. Again, I am not sure how authentic this approach was; I personally preferred the Batmobile Michael Keaton drives in the 1989 film.
We're also introduced to the beginnings of legendary character Jim Gordon (played here by Gary Oldman) who goes from Lieutenant to Police Commissioner by the time half of Dark Knight is over. The launch of the "Bat signal" is explored here too, and is also different from Burton's approach a bit as the Caped Crusader himself goes after crime boss Falconi and ties him to a light shining into the sky for the police to find, thus leading Gordon to nail a bat symbol to the light in order to call for Batman's help. But things really begin to get thick and off track as a plot develops involving Falconi, the Scarecrow and Ducard who ends up coming to Gotham to not only seek revenge for Bruce "leaving him for dead" in his temple, but to also reveal a sinister notion that Gotham must be destroyed in order to be saved from all the crime running rampant through it. This part of Goyer's screenplay got really confusing and questionable; according to Ducard -- the one who trained Bruce to become a super Ninja but who arrives in Gotham assuming the identity of his master who was also killed in the Ninja temple -- Gotham is so corrupt that it must be burned to the ground in order to be saved and this is something he and the League of Shadows have been doing for centuries throughout the world. Not only that, but the Scarecrow has developed a way to weaponize a blue flower extract from Ducard's country that will make every resident of Gotham go insane and kill each other -- Scarecrow and Falconi have stolen a Wayne Enterprises device that will turn the compound into a vaporizing element using the city's water supply. The whole thing, to me, was confusing and didn't make a great deal of sense, especially when the League of Shadows reveals their plot for destroying Gotham. It was one of the weak points of this otherwise gallant attempt at rebooting this franchise.
But, the final hand to hand fight sequence between Bale and Neeson aboard a speeding train rushing to slam the vaporizing device into the water main below Wayne Enterprises was excellent and really fit into the classic villain vs. hero closing fight sequences every good comic film adaptation has; as student versus teacher, Batman and "Ducard" beat the shit out of each other as super Ninjas, with Bruce surprising Ducard with all his acquired, honed fighting skills. Of course, Nolan sets up the introduction of the next villain nicely by Gordon showing the Caped Crusader a Joker playing card left at a murder scene at the very end.
I did not get the chance to see Batman Begins theatrically. I rented it on DVD when it was released and my girlfriend at the time, now fiancé, subsequently bought it for me as a holiday gift back then. Warner had released the one-disc version of the title on standard DVD, with a Two-Disc Deluxe Edition available as well with a slipcase and an extra disc of features. I can remember not thinking too much of it when I first saw it and wrote the review of the DVD -- I was confused by the "Tumbler" thing and wasn't sure just how accurate all the Joe Chill, Carmine Falconi, Scarecrow and Lucius Fox involvement was. I'm still not. But Christopher Nolan's re-visioning of this legendary comic character has sure grown on me and I had the opportunity to view the Blu-ray version for the first time last night after receiving it as a gift. I now have to sell off my DVD copy.
The title was launched in high definition first on HD DVD. With that format's death, Warner has reportedly ported over the same master for the BD transfer. I sent out a few e-mails to my contact at their home video division to confirm this but haven't heard back from Schimeon Frederick prior to writing this review.
Here were my findings.
VIDEO SPECIFICATIONS ANALYSIS:
RESOLUTION: 1080p
TRANSFER ASPECT RATIO: 16X9 2.4:1 (2.40:1)
This will be a comparison between the one-disc widescreen edition of the DVD I owned and this BD copy; now, this title has been criticized heavily on DVD for being noisy, sloppy and just murky looking. Indeed, many parts of it were -- the sequence where Neeson visits Bale in the jail in the beginning exhibited blooms of annoying video noise in the background, making characters appear unstable and out of focus a bit. But I also have to note that upconverted through my Panasonic 'BD10A Blu-ray player, Batman Begins on DVD didn't look all that bad overall. It really didn't. Popping in the Blu-ray last night gave me a slightly different perspective on the film in 1080p.
From the very beginning, the presentation on Blu was cleaner -- but the differences throughout were not mind-boggling to say the least. Some of the same issues with certain scenes were there on the Blu-ray transfer, including some buzzy noise in the background of certain moments. They were greatly reduced on the high def transfer, but they were there. Where blacks on the DVD got a bit murky and messy, they were deep and inky on the Blu-ray making for a more stable image. Most scenes just got more razor-sharp in comparison to the DVD, as high definition should by nature, but because this is mainly a very dim presentation, the film doesn't seem to benefit much from the 1080p encode. Sure it's cleaner and slightly more detailed than the DVD, but you won't pop this in your player, watch it and go "WOW! Look at the difference in Christian Bale's face compared to the DVD! My G-d!!"
It just wasn't that kind of transfer.
AUDIO SPECIFICATIONS ANALYSIS:
ENGLISH DOLBY TRUEHD 5.1; ENGLISH, FRENCH, SPANISH, JAPANESE & PORTUGESE DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1; ENGLISH, FRENCH, SPANISH, CHINESE, JAPANESE, KOREAN & PORTUGESE SUBTITLES
Here we go again. I HATE THIS about Warner's home video program. The film opens defaulting to the lossy Dolby Digital mix, not the TrueHD track, and you need to either pause the film or pull up the menu to switch the track on the fly if you want to hear the TrueHD audio -- either way, it completely takes you out of the experience. Warner needs to do something about this as future releases ramp up.
The DVD was regulated to one Dolby Digital track -- the same one that's on the Blu-ray albeit running at a higher bitrate -- and that track was pretty damn aggressive with thundering LFE and wild panning effects. You know something? I actually think, after switching it on, that the Dolby TrueHD mix made the presentation LOWER in output with less visceral audio impact if you can believe that. Now, again, because my player cannot bitstream the TrueHD signal to my receiver, it is internally decoding it to PCM where my receiver is reading it as decoded multichannel audio...this first generation of Panasonic Blu-ray players had some issues with processing PCM audio streams and that may be why I experience lack of bass and overall "punch" from PCM tracks on my system. But the TrueHD mix, using my method, didn't really impress me. The same surround cues were there and dialogue seemed a tad bit louder (as on the DVD, the Dolby Digital mix suffered from a low center channel dialogue output) but the overall experience wasn't that moving in TrueHD.
I first noticed this when the disc began playing automatically after loading and defaulted to the Dolby Digital track on the Blu-ray...switching to the TrueHD mix by pausing the film and opening the menu, I immediately noticed that initial bass punch during the opening Warner/DC Comics/Legendary Pictures sequence simply got reduced; it's hard to explain, but it seemed the overall "heft" and impact of the audio was diminished by switching to TrueHD. I know, it's weird.
Perhaps when I upgrade equipment to include a new player that bitstreams the TrueHD codecs as well as DTS Master Audio, my findings for these soundtracks will be different. But it is my opinion and finding as of right now that Batman Begins' Dolby TrueHD mix wasn't that impressive considering the sonic footprint left by the DVD's audio and the fact that this was supposed to be high resolution audio.
All the extras from the HD DVD have been ported over -- or most of them if they're not all here -- and there's even the IMAX opening sequence of the robbery in Dark Knight.
While now I will go ahead and sell my DVD copy, I again don't think Batman Begins is worthy of a double-dip to high def if you own the DVD and have a good upconverting player; it's not a bad transfer by any means, but the outrageous jump in quality that everyone expects out of this format isn't really there on this title. This is just my  and I thank you all for reading.
Last edited by Peter Marlowe; 01-02-2009 at 08:44 PM.
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