Batman Begins is the 6th most successful Batman movie (adjusted for inflation) of all time, taking in almost $100 million less than the neon nightmare that was Batman Forever. Katie Holmes has a starring role, the Full Monty guy is a mob boss, an origin story (zzzzz), and a superhero movie where we don't see the hero much in costume until the final third of the movie. Despite this, Batman Begins stands tall at the summit of Nolan's trilogy. Firstly, the billion dollar elephant in the room, The Dark Knight. Without a doubt the most iconic moments of the franchise reboot belongs to Heath Ledger's stunning turn as The Joker; his performance is flawless. At no point, even after repeat viewings, does it feel like you are watching the same man who came to the public forefront with his quiet reserve and simmering frustration in Brokeback Mountain (or singing "I Love You Baby" in 10 Things I Hate About You, for that matter). However, Ledger's clown prince of crime aside, The Dark Knight is an uneven piece of work. Stunning set pieces mask gaping plot holes. Every cell phone in Gotham as a camera!? Harvey goes full evil...why, exactly? The Harvey Dent Two-Face character is one of the most complex and tragic in the Batman mythology, handled to heartbreaking effect in the animated series, yet created and disposed of here in a matter of minutes. The final confrontation between Batman and the Joker does not feel like the confrontation between the world's most popular hero and villain combo; a bastardised version of The Killing Joke, involving boats followed by a 10 second fight involving dogs, is hardly the way to resolve the conflict between these two greats. Don't get me wrong, I am not asking for 40 minute Man of Steel levels of wanton destruction, but I feel these two colossi of comics deserved more gravitas. From the outset of Begins, it plays with a confidence and patience in its storytelling that is missing from the sequels. Characters talk to each other in conversations for more than just exposition. Ducard's and Bruce's conversations and confrontations in the mountains give depth to characters that in most other superhero movies would be dispatched with a 2 minute training montage (ahem, Green Lantern). As a result of this, when Batman finally does begin, we care about the man under the cowl and see him as a vulnerable human being, as opposed to an indestructible superhero.
The fight scenes, which were heavily criticized for being too shaky and incomprehensible, fail to see the crux of the Batman. He is a myth, or to paraphrase Keyser Soze, "A spook story criminals tell each other. Be careful or the Batman will get ya." He is a normal human being who must live in the shadows in order to strike fear and intimation into men not used to being afraid or intimated. He tells Alfred, "as a man he can be ignored, but as a symbol he can be everlasting." This can be seen in full effect during Batman's introduction to Gotham. He breaks up Falcone's drug ring at the docks in a scene that would not look out of place in a horror movie. It involves half glimpses, eerie whispers and lights being shattered in a set piece that would have tickled Hitchcock. The casting of Bale was a master stroke, especially given the names considered before he got the part, such as Joshua Jackson and Ashton Kutcher. He is the first actor to play a superhero as a role and not a "comic book role." He throws himself into the part of both Bruce Wayne and Batman with an equal mix of intensity and vulnerability (also with a restraint he had all but abandoned by The Dark Knight Rises), a man of ferocity but also at his core a man who was terrified as a boy and never fully recovered. Many writers and readers alike say that Bruce Wayne died in Crime Alley with his parents, but this film dares to say the opposite; he was born there. Would he have grown up an entitled rich kid? Considering his parents' moral character and their determination to help Gotham's less privileged citizens, probably not. There is no doubt that he would not have become such a powerful force for justice in Gotham had he not been so painfully on the receiving end of his own injustice. Bale is not alone in taking a straight-faced sincerity to what traditionally had been a genre with one eye on the material and one eye winking at the camera. Gary Oldman is not the first name to come to mind if you were looking for an incorruptible beacon of hope surrounded by a police force more worried about putting their hands out then putting hands in cuffs. However, Oldman is a revelation, and in a career where he has constantly reinvented himself, he adds another string to his bow here by bringing a sure sensitivity mixed with unbridled heroism; a man who is both not afraid to confront Batman, but also to accept he is necessary. The final scene on the rooftop is a perfect example, as he scolds and thanks Batman within a matter of seconds and with a sincerity that convinces the viewer he means both equally. The film hits a series high in both storyline and dialogue. The origins of everything, from the suit to the Batmobile, are handled perfectly with all the style and emotional resonance of a great filmmaker hitting his stride. The characters are presented as a whole, and each decision they make is in keeping with the tone, something that cannot be said of the later films; Batman head-scratchingly disappearing for 8 years because he is sad, or Alfred and Bruce abandoning a seemingly unbreakable bond so easily.
Here, Batman is forced to rely on his wits to evolve as opposed to the fantastical Bond-like technology of the later movies. We also see glimpses of the man Ra's al Ghul simply referred to as "Detective," along with methods and a storyline more grounded in realism then any that came after it. There are no fantastic flying machines whisking nuclear bombs away or cities cut off from the rest of the world. Here, Batman has to confront a threat right on his doorstep. Comic book purists will argue that the books contain a batwing and the No Man's Land story showed a Gotham siphoned off from the rest of humanity. This is true, however in Begins, Nolan understands his medium perfectly - what works on a comic page doesn't necessarily work on a cinema screen (do you really want to see Bat-Mite on screen? Well, actually kinda, now that I say it). The film is definitely one of the most earnest superhero movie ever made, yet it does not do so at the expense of both fun and spectacle. It straddles the line between both perfectly. Yes, The Avengers was bombastic fun, but did you take any of it seriously? On the flip side, Man of Steel was almost sterile in its tone, with no element of fun. The tone of Begins hits it out of the park, mixing exciting set pieces, like the heart racing rescue of Rachel from Arkham, with the heart-breaking and uplifting moment were a bloodied and almost beaten Bruce Wayne is literally watching his life come crashing down around him, and is set right by Michael Caine's wonderful Alfred with four simple words "Why do we fall?". These words could be the mantra for the Batman franchise after watching it crash and burn so badly with the execrable Batman and Robin. However, without that spectacular failure, the landscape of comic book movies would look very different. This was the film that made people realise that superhero movies could be simply great movies as opposed to great comic book movies. Would names like Shane Black and Kenneth Branagh have helmed comic book adaptations had Nolan not shown they can be used to enhance your credibility, not damage it? As Christopher Reeve found, it's impossible to escape from the shadow of Superman's cape, to be seen as anything other than the last son of Krypton, yet the genre has now come full circle, with superhero roles becoming some of the hottest and most sought after by some of the biggest and most respected names in Hollywood. Batman Begins was the blue touch paper that sparked the modern comic book revolution into life and into mainstream credibility, something that seemed unimaginable after Schumacher's nipple-sporting Knight. As Batman Begins teaches us, "we fall so that we can learn to pick ourselves up."