Batman Began

My house is finally in order, literally and figuratively. I have tidied up the whole house, caught up with the laundry, put the recycling in the car for tomorrow, and run the dishwasher. Of course, tomorrow, I have to unload said dishwasher and do the other dishes and take the recycling to the center etc..., but you get the idea. I also finished the "renovations" in my room (i.e. putting in new shelves and cleaning it up a bit.) While I was cleaning up, I found some plastic soldiers my friend Bev had sent me in a care package. I put magnets (that I found at school) on all of them and stuck them to my new shelves. Right now the Wehrmacht and the 1st Army are duking it out for supremacy in the 900s. (Yes, I use the Dewey Decimal system, and yes I am a nerd.)
So to reward myself for all of my house-husbandry (no, I do not breed houses, I don't think that could be done), I got tickets to go see Batman Begins with Spencer tonight. The only thing was, no theaters in Charlottesville were showing it. (Exactly, whaaaa?) So we drove over half an hour to Staunton--in Spencer's truck so that we could blend in in the Valley. We went to the 10:10 show. Anyways, you know how when you spend $8.00 for a movie and $14.00 for popcorn and go see a movie on opening night during the middle of the week even though you know you could just wait to see it at the cheap theater and get your beauty rest and then you regret the whole thing later? Well, this was not my experience.
>>POSSIBLE BATMAN SPOILER ALERT<<

It is quite possible that Batman Begins will be my favorite superhero movie ever. Now, the reasons I like movies are possibly quite different from the average movie goer. However, I will mention the things that Joe Multiplex (and myself) may appreciate...

the souped-up Hummer batmobile

the crazy ninja $ђ!+

Katie Holmes

excellent use of the bat-grapple

Now, I will mention the things that were truly compelling to me. Morality is back! Batman/Bruce Wayne inhabits a moral universe in which his actions have moral consequences. However, although trained by a moral dualist, he rejects dualism and fights for civil society. This movie was what The Matrix could have been. In fact, much like The Matrix, the first half of the movie created the philosophical/moral universe and the second half involved @$$-kicking. However, while The Matrix tore down its own moral universe, Batman Begins rebuilt it, the Wayne Mansion serving as a perfect metaphor for morality. Also, unlike the Matrix, this movie is not neo-Platonic, but anti-dualistic.
In fact, the movie served as a subtle (or maybe not so, be your own judge) critique of our "war" on terrorism. At one point the Scarecrow--played beautifully by Cillian Murphy, the comic book villain perfectly updated for the movies, cackles, "You have nothing to fear but fear itself." Of course, this kind of rhetoric is the only thing that can fight terrorism. Terror can't be effective if one can be "inoculated" against it. In fact, it serves as perfect symbolism that the courageous characters in the movie were the first to be inoculated against the terror gas that was actually dispersed as weapon of mass destruction.
Also, Christian Bale, playing essentially the same character from American Psycho and Shaft channels the dark knight as brilliantly as Hayden Christensen did not channel Anakin Skywalker--especially in Attack of the Clones.
The great thing about superheroes is that they are as close as America will come to a mythology. That is why the absolute contemporary anachronistic futurism of the Batman movies is far superior to the contemporaneousness of Spider-Man and other superhero movies. Making the batmobile a souped-up hummer is morally equivalent to putting fins on it in the 1960s.
The thing that separates this movie from Star Wars is that it has a coherent philosophy of good and evil. Bringing balance to Gotham does not come through totally destroying evil, as one of the villains wants to, but rather through establishing civil society. This is a great lesson for our generation.
Oh, and while I'm blowing smoke up this movie's hind-end, Michael Caine was the perfect salt and pepper as Alfred. The other great thing about this movie is that the plot twists are somewhat suprising, and you may leave the theater pleasantly suprised at it's creativity.
Now it is time for bed.

Some more things I did not post last night...

I appreciate the way Chicago stood in for Gotham rather than New York this time. It made all the chase scenes seem like an homage to The Blues Brothers--"We're on Lower Wacker Drive."

A note about the torturous way the movie deals with economics and rewrites American history. I disagree with the author of the Village Voice review who suggests that, "the screenplay performs ludicrous contortions trying to conform the fact of Batman's bottomless wealth to the urban blight he conscientiously battles at night." In fact, Dr. Wayne suggests to his son that "this city has been good to us," meaning, that their wealth is a direct result of the patronage of the proletariat. Although, as I age, I am seemingly becoming more conservative (a startling prospect given my current age), I would suggest that the pre-modern (pre-Marxist) sense that the aristocracy provides--as its duty--protection, work, and the basic needs of the proletariat is a functional moral model for society. In fact, I believe the Katie Holmes character stands--if there is one--as the moral center of the movie. This is a biblical principle--"to whom much has been given, much has been demanded." If corporations were to behave as the "citizens" that they have been legally defined as being, the world could be a much better place.

Spencer, last night, of course, recognized Gary Oldman, however, his performance was so superlative, I didn't even know what actor was playing Sargeant "Commissioner" Gordon.

Finally, let's give Morgan Freeman and Liam Neeson some credit, there were no total a-list stars, with the possible exception of the future Mrs. Cruise, but all the stars either did yeoman's service, or didn't totally stink it up, a la Star Wars.