Batman Begins vs Unbreakable

Poor Joel Schumacher. Everywhere you turn, someone's praising Batman Begins. But, they're not just praising Batman Begins, they're crediting it with reversing the damage wrought by Joel Schumacher. The franchise is saved…from Joel Schumacher. Every review mentions stuff like the new Batman's lack of “Schumacher-style Bat-nipples,” or the revised Gotham City as “thankfully free of Schumacherian day-glo bullshit.”*

*These are fake quotes, but you get the idea: everyone hates Schumacher. I bet even his kids are all “Dad, I am not wearing THAT to Kindergarten.”

Anyway, the new Batman is good, but the point isn't so much that it's good, but that it's not bad. Because the most recent Batmans were bad, and every single comic book movie lately that tries to be dark is dumb instead, and even the great new Star Wars movie is fairly awful, and it's basically Batman in space. So Batman Begins not being bad is cause for celebration. That it's good too means that it might as well be the best movie ever (see meaningless grade below).

In Batman Begins, moviegoers get Batman's origin for the first time. Comic book readers are already familiar; Batman's origin is recapped in at least partial detail every couple months. In the movies, though, there have only been hints. In Batman Begins, we get the death of Bruce Wayne's parents, the discovery of the cave, the reasons behind the whole bat motif, how Bruce became such an agile badass, and where he gets his wonderful toys.

Christian Bale stars as Bruce Wayne, and he's given a much weightier part than any other actor to play the role. Bale's Bruce isn't casual about anything. Being Batman is a necessity, and everything in Bruce's life, from squiring bimbos and faking public drunkenness to dropping for high-speed pushups, is in the service of making Batman a more effective presence in Gotham City. It works. For the first time, I thought about Bruce during the Batman scenes, and about what must be going through his mind. Bruce's sadness, guilt and anger are all present in Batman Begins, whether the scene features Bruce or Batman. As Batman, of course, we mainly get the anger, and it's a rush. Batman has been the heavy before (Michael Keaton's first scene in Batman comes to mind), but never with the intensity seen in Batman Begins. At one point, Batman interrogates a bad cop by repeatedly dropping him from a rooftop, then stringing him back up at the last second. The cop swears to God he don't know nothin', prompting a devil-voiced Batman to say, “SWEAR TO ME!”, which I can be heard imitating at least once a day. Batman isn't just a guy in a mask. See, this Batman isn't scary because bats are scary, or because he's got horns and can't be stabbed. He's scary because he's pretty messed up inside that cowl, and he's practically half-ninja, and he's the one who thought of Devil-voice, and well…Batman's crazy; don't fuck with him.

So, yeah, I'm saying it: Christian Bale is the best Batman. He's got some competition, I'll allow, in the Bruce Wayne department (from Mr. Michael Keaton, hanging upside-down in his bedroom and slow-dancing with a mid-breakdown Selina Kyle), but there's just too much going on here not to sway it in Bale's direction. I haven't even gone into his pre-Batman training at the hands of Liam Neeson, who sees all and knows all and could probably choreograph his own sword fights at this point (although he's officially exhausted every option in the goatee family.)

Besides Neeson, Bruce Wayne has a pretty sturdy support group this go-round, and none of them have to glue anything to their faces (Ah, how Schumacher loves to glue shit to your face). Morgan Freeman plays Lucius Fox, an old friend of Bruce's dad, who has been pushed aside at Wayne Enterprises, conveniently stashed in Military Research, where apparently the military is being trained to be Batmen and drive Batmobiles and crack wise. Michael Caine plays Alfred, and while it's a bit of a surprise how quickly he's on-board for Bruce's new crimefighting stunts, it's fun to see him in on the action, serving protein shakes and testing cowls with baseball bats.

Of course there's one good cop in Gotham, Jim Gordon, not yet a commissioner, and played beautifully by Gary Oldman. We're talking seriously good here, in both senses of the word. Oldman as a good guy doesn't sound like much fun, but he's great, and he's the character I'm looking most forward to seeing in sequels. Katie Holmes plays the only other non-corrupt city official, Rachel Dawes: Assistant D.A. (cue Law and Order keyboard vamps). Holmes probably seems a little young for assistant D.A.ing, but I figure since she's not making closing arguments or being all “I object!” and quoting precedents, then I'm fine with whatever job they want to give her. She's tough and sincere with Bruce, and she's pretty and all, and well, even if I'm not jumping on couches about her, I suppose I can see why a person might want to.

The villains this time are more subtle than in previous installments (I'm pretty sure only Batman knows who the actual villains are), and while I'm hoping for flashier villains next time—Hand down, Schumacher, nobody fucking asked you—I think the bad guys are just right in Batman Begins. Ken Watanabe is Ra's Al Ghul (if it were a couple weeks later, we'd speak freely, until then, Ken Watanabe is exactly who I say), and although he's only seen briefly, his impact is felt whenever Batman pops from a shadow and then disappears instantly. Cillian Murphy plays Jonathan Crane, a crooked psychiatrist who falsely declares criminals insane, then bring them to Arkham Asylum where he dresses as the Scarecrow and uses his fear toxins to drive them crazy for real. Something awesome and creepy happens when he and Batman meet, but I'm spoiling too much already.

Batman Begins was directed by Christopher Nolan, and is right in keeping with his previous two efforts, Memento and Insomnia. Both focus on a troubled hero obsessed with avenging a death, to the point of damaging his own psyche. For my money, Batman Begins trumps them both slightly, because—duh—Batman's car is all huge and sweet and you can drive it lying facedown. Rock. Nolan's Gotham City is rooted more firmly in our reality than Tim Burton's, although it contains looping monorails, islands joined by suspension bridges, and an underground that appears sometimes to actually be underground. Nolan tries as often as possible to give us a Batman that could potentially exist, while sprinkling comic book touches here and there (a plot to poison the city, secret identity switcheroos, an obvious sequel setup). The fight scenes are brutal, maybe. Lots of people drop at the hands of Bruce and Batman, but they're filmed so tight and feature so many edits, it's often confusing who's who and what kind of damage they're inflicting. The comic fanboy in me insists that's what it looks like when Batman fights: he gets in there and gets the job done before anyone knows what hit them. The Earthling with only two eyes in me was wondering if maybe I should have sat further back to try and get a better handle on the action.

Not that it matters. It's Christopher Nolan, with his appropriate and talented cast and his durable sets and his smart script. It's not Schumacher, that loveable loser. There's no gloves with fake fingernails, no Gossip Gertie, no R. Kelly on the soundtrack. No rubber lips, no gorilla suits, no ice puns.

Batman Begins put me in the mood to watch Batman Begins all over again, but that would probably result in me being more critical of it, so let's put that off for now. There are a dozen superhero movies that would make a nice companion to Batman Begins (particularly the first two Tim Burton movies, which make smoother follow-ups to Batman Begins than you might think), but I think your next stop should be another dark, subtle superhero origin with a great cast: Unbreakable.

Unbreakable is one of those movies, like The Deep End or The Man Who Wasn't There, that seem like they could fall apart at any minute. It's so fragile and nervous I just sit there, holding my breath, lest my exhale cause someone on screen to scatter in the wind. Bruce Willis plays David Dunne, a man who cannot remember ever being sick. It wouldn't be an issue, but David has just survived a catastrophic train wreck that killed every other passenger. David finds a note on his car asking if he's ever been sick, and neither he nor his wife can recall a single incident.

The note was from Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), a man who can't remember not being injured. Elijah is an eccentric man in a wheelchair who has a disease rendering him with such brittle bones he was born with most of them broken. Elijah wears layers of leather, and drives a car designed specifically for his needs. Elijah is somewhat obsessed with the potential that David might be his opposite; his reasoning is that if he is constantly being broken, then at the other extreme, there must be somebody who cannot be broken at all.

But David is broken already. His marriage is practically over, and despite the fact that they bunk together, he can no longer communicate with his young son. He's sad and quiet, and just sort of shuffles along. He's got a power, though, and Elijah convinces him to give it a try. David can sense where people have been, and where they might be going, and what events might have occurred. All he has to do is touch. Proving he's braver than most of us, David heads down to the train station for his initial stranger-touching. It's a knockout of a scene, with David slowly moving around, letting his hands brush passerby. What he learns leads him to his first mission as a hero, out on a rainy night with his hood pulled down over his eyes.

And then Unbreakable is pretty much over. It's Shyamalan, so you know there's a surprise ending. In most movies, this surprise would have been given away in the trailer, and it wouldn't be at the end of the movie, it'd be in the middle. Unbreakable isn't a movie about a hero; it's a movie about the potential for a hero, and how a seemingly regular guy might get there. Bruce Willis does this sort of thing a lot. Die Hard, The Sixth Sense, 12 Monkeys, even Pulp Fiction, find him accomplishing things he didn't think possible, suffering along the way to a goal that could possibly kill him. I think Unbreakable contains Willis's best performance, especially in scenes with Robin Wright Penn and Spencer Treat Wilson, as his wife and kid, respectively.

Unbreakable is to comic books what The Sixth Sense was to ghost stories. Meaning, there's really no reason for the genre specification. Unbreakable is just about a guy, not a comic hero. It's a little long on the Thoughtfulness and Importance, as Shyamalan movies can be, and it cracks a little if you discuss it too long after watching, and the Shyamalan cameo has got to stop. But like Batman Begins, it benefits from comparison. Nolan is no Schumacher, and Unbreakable is no Village.

Batman Begins: A
Unbreakable: A-