Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Batman Begins ::
by William the Bloody
Gotham city is in an economic collapse. The Wayne family, one of the oldest and wealthiest families in the city, decide to give until it hurts in order to save their beloved city by creating Wayne Enterprises and supplying such things as a new water supply system and cheap public transit by means of a new monorail. Thomas Wayne, the current Wayne patriarch, tells all of this to his young son Bruce, and how important it is to look after the community and to lead by example. Shortly thereafter, the Wayne family go out to the opera. Bruce begs his father to leave early, and on their way out, Thomas and his wife are shot down by a mugger, who runs off into the night, leaving young Bruce alone in the alley to watch his parents die. Bruce grows up under the care of the family butler, Alfred, and turns from a troubled and lonely youth into a restless, guilt-ridden young man. He travels the world never touching the vast fortune at his fingertips, preferring instead to live by cunning among the downtrodden of the under world of far away nations where no one knows who he is. Lost and without guidance, Bruce winds up imprisoned in a foreign country for stealing. A mysterious man appears to him there and offers him the direction he lacks. The next day, Bruce gets released from prison and seeks this mystery man in a compound high up on a mountain slope. This, is the League of Shadows, and the mystery man says he needs to focus his anger and guilt into a weapon of vengeance. The mystery man and the League train Bruce into a masterful combatant and their leader, Ra's Al Ghul, want him to helm their project to cleanse Gotham permanently. Bruce refuses, knowing Gotham can be saved if he works hard enough, fights his way free and destroys the League's compound in the process. Bruce returns home, seven years having passed since he left. He reenters Gotham society as Bruce Wayne and expresses a minor interest in the Wayne Enterprises goings on. He gets shunted into the dead end tech department, where all of the prototypes that will never see production are laid to rest. There are many interesting items to be found down there, very interesting indeed to one who is interested in single handedly combating the ugly Gotham criminal underbelly. Bruce uses all the refused military prototype body armor and such to transform himself into a Bat, a symbol of something to be feared, a symbol that will be seen as the criminal scum as unstoppable. But Bruce discovers as he takes down the premiere mob boss in Gotham that there is in fact something far more sinister going on than your usual illegal fare. Something that could shake all of Gotham down to its core if he can't stop it before it's too late.
The Good: Let me just say: FINALLY!!!!!!! Finally a Batman film that puts James Gordon in a decent part! Finally a Batman film that DOESN'T have any crappy romance underplot! Finally a Batman film where no one dies! Finally a Batman film that uses two Bat-villains and yet their coexistence is fluid and seamless and not just tossed into a blender! Finally a Batman film that gives us something akin to a REAL Batman! And this Batman is DARK (without having heaps of death) kiddies! Seriously, THIS Batman makes Tim Burton's 1989 Batman look like Bedknobs and Broomsticks by comparison! Now, I'm a Bat-freak and I's knows my Batman, see, and it was really disappointing that in the films of the previous franchise they went around killing off the major villains and such, well not here! This film has the Scarecrow, and I'll admit that hearing this make me uneasy as he's sort of a B-villain, but he fit in well with the plot (yes there's a PLOT!) AND he's still alive, left roaming the streets in the end. Okay, yes it may SEEM as though they kill Ra's Al Ghul, but any Bat-freak worth his salt knows that Ra's has them Lazarus pits all over the place, so it might not yet be lights out for that guy. And, well, let's take a moment to gaze adoringly at the cast! Christain Bale, Michael Cane, Liam Neeson, Ken Watanabe (?!?!), Gary Oldman (!!), and Morgan freakin' Freeman!! THAT is one seriously good crew and they all perform well. Michael Cane was exceptionally good as Alfred and he and Bruce had some really swell moments reminiscent of the classics. You can't believe how happy I was to at last have a few of those moments straight out of the comics with Batman and Gordon, where they talk and Gordon turns around to find the Batman has already silently left. I was really glad they didn't try to squeeze any top 20 pop tunes into this one as well.
The Bad: The origins of the Batman seemed to be a complicated oversimplification of what he actually went through in the comics. In the comics, Bruce actively seeks out the best of the best in various fields of combat, stealth and escape to become on of the best fighters the world over. Here, he seems to be only trained by the League of Shadows. This seems to be very good training and all, but I just felt it left a few blanks in the puzzle, but then, I'm a big Bat-freak and very particular, and if they do it right , this could be filled in on subsequent sequels. Some of the camera work during the fight scenes nearly induced motion sickness. It looked like they put the camera in the washer on the agitate cycle so much of the actual fighting is not really seen much. Some people might feel like it takes forever for this movie to actually "start" as its about half way in before we even see any traces of the Batman at all. Christian Bale didn't really look all that great in the Bat-cowl and his gravelling Bat-voice took some getting used to. The score was only semi-decent, but then Danny Elfman's work on the last franchise is definitely the only thing about them hard to top. The no-romance ending kinda felt like nearly a Spider-Man no-romance ending rip off.
Overall, I really liked it. It superbly delivered many Bat-aspects the last franchise had glaringly omitted (re: decent origin, James Gordon prominently featured, Batman is actually all about how "no one dies", a decent look at Wayne Enterprises, NO romance!). Ra's Al Ghul was actually the perfect introductory villain, leaving the audience with cool teasers of the possibilities to come. If you're going into this expecting to find more campy, goofy, bright colored antics, then you are in the wrong theater. Sure, some people may find this one really dark with nothing for the kids, but hey, folks, this is Batman! BATMAN! He's NOT for the kids; he's hardcore!
A-
