After seeing the title many would get furious on me and say Batman Begins isn't the best in Nolan's trilogy, let alone the entire superhero movies genre! And its box-office earnings is the weakest among the three!
Well, let me clear things up straight away - when I say here the best superhero movie, I mean the best among the first movies of a particular superhero film series. I believe the opening movie of a series is actually the most vital one because the progression of a series depends highly on how it performs.
Again, the first movie in a series is more crucial because it takes on the responsibility to discover the superhero while sequels just start off with a ready-made superhero. Imagine The Dark Knight where it isn't just The Joker that Christian Bale's character has to deal with, he also has to emerge from being just Bruce Wayne to the Caped Crusader - that would surely have been a whole lot difficult task for Nolan!
And these first movies cannot only focus on the origin story of the superhero - there has to be some bad-ass villain that he overthrows. Otherwise, no one is going to watch the movie for sure! If there wasn't Ra's Al Ghul in the movie, would you have watched it just to see how Bruce Wayne finds out the Batman from within?
I hope it's clear to you now. So, let's begin analyzing the glory of Batman Begins!
Recovering From Great Fall!
The last Batman movie before Batman Begins is Batman and Robin - the movie that set …(Continued to Page 2)
(Continued from Page 1)… records for lowest box-office earnings and worst critical response in the history of the movie franchise. Christopher Nolan's task was clearly more challenging than that of the directors of Iron Man, Spider-Man, Thor, and Captain America, and even that of the directors of The Amazing Spider-Man, Man of Steel or The Incredible Hulk because none of their immediate predecessor movies were as disastrous as Batman and Robin was.
The responses that Batman Begins received from both critics and audiences was great from that point of view - it helped people completely forget what they had seen before. I would like to cite a more recent example of something similar – Marvel's Daredevil is outstanding also because it has allowed the fans to finally get rid of the resentment that would come alive whenever they heard the word "˜Daredevil', because Ben Affleck starrer 2003 flick had simply been a torture!
Unfolding A New Era!
Batman Begins is the fountainhead of the trend of darker genre movies and I feel that needs no explanation. Retelling a back-story or reboot the story altogether - both kind of movies made afterwards have been highly influenced by the first installment of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy. RoboCop and Casino Royale are just a couple of examples…(Continued to Page 3)
(Continued from Page 2)… A whole lot of filmmakers, writers, actors and producers have mentioned Batman Begins while describing their own ventures. Its impact is simply undeniable whether or not you like dark and gritty movies.
Creating A Balance – Origin & Action!
Most people wish today that they don't want to see origin story again in the next Spider-Man movie that will feature Tom Holland as the titular superhero. This is what went wrong with The Amazing Spider-Man – it lacked badly the balance between origin and action. Batman Begins was bold enough to focus heavily on the origin story, we had to wait more than an hour in the theaters to before catching the first glimpses of the Caped Crusader. But at the same time, we were being teased by the bigger event - a clash with the main villain was growing inevitable.
I believe Bruce Wayne of Batman Begins is the best developed alter-ego in any superhero movie. At the same time, the main antagonist Ra's Al Ghul also emerged as a villain of enormous depth and strength. And not just these two characters, all the characters - Lucius Fox, Alfred Pennyworth, Jim Gordon, and Rachel Dawes - were presented with appropriate amount of depth as modern day complex individuals. I felt no other superhero movie could maintain that balance, at least not to the level Batman Begins maintained.
However, this is all that I think. If you have a different opinion, do share it via comment!
