Batman Begins - Detailed Analysis & Review

Batman Begins is my favourite standalone Batman movie. It set a precedent for the kind of grounded serious superhero movie that I would love going forward. So let's dig in an talk about it. Over the next three episodes, I'll be covering the Dark Knight Trilogy, but it all begins here with Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins.

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Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven.

I’m Adam David Collings

The author of Jewel of The Stars.

And I am a nerd.

This is episode 92 of the podcast.

 

Today, we’re talking about the movie Batman Begins.

 

The description on IMDB reads

After training with his mentor, Batman begins his fight to free crime-ridden Gotham City from corruption.

 

The story for this movie was written by David S. Goyer

The screenplay was written by Christopher Nolan.

It was directed by Christopher Nolan

And it first released in June 2005 

In order to share my thoughts and reactions to Batman Begins, I need to very briefly talk about my past experience with Batman. Much like Superman, Batman has always been a part of my consciousness. I can’t remember a time in my life before I knew about Batman. He was just always there.

 

The first version of the character that I actively remember engaging with was the 60s TV series, although I’m sure there was awareness before that. I wasn’t alive in the 60s, of course, but I saw the show on repeats.

Remember Saturday morning cartoons in the 80s? Our local TV station did their own Saturday morning show, and amongst all the cartoons, they always showed one live action show. At one point they showed the Beverly Hillbillies. At another point, it was Adam West Batman.

 

I enjoyed the show, but I think even at the time, I was aware that it was incredibly cheesy and silly. But to me, Superheroes were not silly. I took them very seriously.

 

When news of the 1989 Tim Burton movie came out, my ears pricked up. I didn’t see the movie at the cinema. We just didn’t really go to the cinema much when I was a kid. We watched everything on Video. And that’s how I eventually saw this movie. But I remember seeing the marketing. And I had a hardcover book about the making of the movie. I remember looking at the darker aesthetic and thinking, wow. This is a gritter, more serious take on Batman. I was VERY interested. Would this movie take the character as seriously as I did?

 

When I finally saw the movie, I enjoyed it. It was more grounded. I liked how they explained the Joker’s smile. He had to have his skin stretched after his accident, so he used makeup to make it less weird. At least, that’s how I interpreted it. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realised that the normal skin tone was actually the makeup, and the white skin was real.

 

This movie was much closer to the kind of Batman I wanted, but it still had more campiness than I expected. Most of that came from the Joker. Seeing him prance about with his goons spray painting the museum, it felt like I was right back in Adam West land. But it was more than that. There was a thick veneer of un-realness over them, especially the second. It was the architecture, the people, the 1930s cameras, Penguin’s father’s monocle.

 

And the movies in that series got progressively more and more silly.

I don’t want to speak too disparagingly about that series, because there’s lots of good stuff to like.

 

But when they announced that the Batman movies were getting rebooted, I was very interested once again.

 

And this time, they really were taking it seriously. Batman Begins was a more serious grounded Batman. This was a movie that took the character as seriously as I did. It treated him like a person and really fleshed out Bruce Wayne as much as it did Batman.

This was EXACTLY what I’d been looking for. And to this day, Batman Begins is still my favourite stand-alone Batman movie. It’ll be interesting to see if that still holds after I re-watch The Dark Knight, which I’ve only ever seen once. I say standalone because Batman V Superman was a multi-hero movie. But Batman Begins primed me for Zack Snyder’s work. Batman Begins made me fall in love with the grounded serious Superhero movie. And I’ve never looked back.

 

So let’s dig in and talk about it.

 

So the movie begins with a shot of the sky with bats flying everywhere, and Batman’s logo revealed in the background. That logo is so recognisable that you really don’t need any text. That’s something the marketers knew even back in 1989.

 

Bruce is running around his garden as a child. Most Batman stories begin with Bruce walking through the alley with his parents at night, but this is a different take. This is Bruce before the tragedy. It’s all bright colours and sunny. Bruce has a big smile on his face as he plays with his childhood friend Rachel. But he’s a bit of a little ratbag. Rachel has found something cool, it’s an old arrowhead, and he snatches it from her. It seems that child Bruce has developed a sense of, I can have what I want, because I’m rich. Not exactly the lesson his parents would want him to pick up, we’ll see later that they’re really good people. But this is an attitude that could easily develop in a child raised in an environment like this, unless much care was taken to help him unlearn that kind of stuff.

 

As Rachel chases him, Bruce falls through a hole into an old boarded up well. rachel runs to get help from her Mum, who is in Wayne Manor, which looks really cool. I’m surprised they didn’t take more care to fence it off or something. This well connects to a cave system underground, and it is filled with bats. Young Bruce freaks out as they flap around his face, giving him a life-time fear of bats. This is an important element that will come back later in a way that I thought was really cool.

 

That’s when we cut to Bruce waking up as an adult.

 

Now I’ve heard from some sources, some criticisms of this movie and it’s realistic take. Pointing out that there are things in it that are far from realistic. Bruce’s fall without apparent injury could be classed as one. Although we’ll later learn that he did break his leg, but a bit more visible pain on his face would have helped.

 

For me, when I say I love this movie for its realistic take, it’s not about every little moment being perfectly realistic. It’s about the realistic take on the characters. It’s about the world feeling like ours, rather than having that thick veneer of fakeness plastered over it like the previous movie series. As I said before, it’s about this movie taking itself seriously.

 

This is a Bruce Wayne we’ve never seen. He’s got a beard. He's lying in a foreign prison. Okay, What is going on here?

 

Most Batman stories do the parents’ death and then cut straight to Batman fully costumed and operating in Gotham. But there’s a big jump between those. How do you get from one to the other? That was the big promise of this movie. They were going to delve more deeply into Batman’s origin story, a story that had never really been told on screen before. We see how Bruce as a young man goes off in search of his destiny, and finally finds it. Finds a way to deal with the pain of his parent’s death, and ultimately, becomes the Batman we know.

This was a story that was completely new to me, and I loved it.

 

We don’t yet know what Bruce is in here for, but another of the prisoners has it out for him. Is bullying him.

I quite like it when the bully refers to himself as the devil, and Bruce says, “you’re not the devil. You’re practice.” 

That tells you so much about Bruce’s mindset here. He’s using everything around him, every experience, to learn and develop. To become what he wants to become. And that’s very Batman.

 

We get to see a nicely done fight scene. It’s fierce and brutal.

When the guards drag Bruce away “for protection” and then reveal it’s not for him, it’s for all the thugs he beat up, I audibly laughed. A little humour, but not the kind of humour that pulls you out of the seriousness of the scene.

 

Somebody is waiting for him in his cell. A well-dressed Liam Neeson calling himself Ducard. He says something very interesting. “Are you so desperate to fight criminals that you get yourself locked up so you can take them on one at a time.” This gives us a lot of insight into who Bruce is at the moment, and what’s going on in his head.

Did he deliberately get himself locked up in here? I wouldn’t put it past this version of Bruce Wayne.

 

Of course, Ducard has figured out exactly who Bruce is. And he says he works for Ra’s al Ghul, a name I hadn’t heard before I watched this movie the first time.

 

Bruce has been exploring the criminal underworld, but in the process, he’s become lost. Rotting in a foreign prison. He may be learning about criminals here, but he’s certainly not going to do anybody any good.

 

Ra’s al Ghul can offer him a path. Something he needs but isn’t yet convinced about. The path of the League of Shadows.

 

Ra’s al Ghul shared Bruce’s hatred of evil. He can provide a way to serve true justice.

So a vigilante. Bruce isn’t sure that’s what he wants to be.

 

But Ducard sees al Ghul differently. A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification. He can be destroyed or locked up. Kinda like Bruce right now. But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can’t stop you, then you become something else entirely. A legend. There’s some good dialog in this film.

 

And now he’s got Bruce’s attention. Because he’s offering a concrete way to become what Bruce really wants. A way to truly make a difference against the kind of evil, so rampant in his home city, that destroyed his life.

 

This is as good a time as any to talk about a theory I have.

You see, the whole idea of a man dressing up as a bat to fight crime is absurd. It’s ridiculous. You might even say, it’s pretty stupid. So why does it work? How do you make it work?

 

When you’re adapting a comic book to a movie, and you come across something in the comics that’s silly, there’s two main ways you can deal with it.

 

The first is to basically hang a lantern on it. This has become quite popular in recent time, but has been for a long while. The MCU did this when Hawkeye says “I’m fighting robots with a bow and arrow. None of this makes any sense.” I really don’t like this approach. It’s the acknowledgement, of, this is silly, we know it’s silly, but let’s just go with it, yeah?

 

Even Zack Snyder’s Justice League does this a little bit, when Aquaman derides Bruce for “dressing up like a bat” and later says “I dig it.”

 

At the other extreme, you’ve got the approach that Batman Begins takes. When you find something that's silly, you either find a way to make it work, to make it less silly, or you eject it.

 

An example of this is the penguin. I believe Christopher Nolan has been quited as saying that The Penguin would never have worked in his trilogy because the character just wouldn’t fit with the more realistic take he’d developed.

 

But right here, in this scene, we’re seeing that Batman Begins is going to try to explain why an orphaned boy grows into a man who eventually wears a bat costume, in a way that doesn’t feel silly. And for me, personally, it works really well.

 

Ducard has arranged for Bruce to be released from prison tomorrow. He’s instructed to find a rare flower that grows on the mountain. If he can pick one, and bring it to the top of the mountain, he may find what he’s been looking for all this time.

 

I’m liking the character development they’re already doing with Bruce. He knows he’s looking for something, and he’s been stumbling around the world trying to find it, but so far he’s failed. This is exactly the kind of person that Ra’as al Ghul would try to recruit. And yes, Bruce may have finally found what he’s been searching for.

 

The scenery in this next sequence is quite beautiful. The grassy plains and the snowy mountains.

 

He makes his way up the mountain, past villages. They warn him to turn back. I guess there are stories about the questionable people who live up at the top.

 

Bruce is being put through a physical challenge to reach his destination. It’s one thing to want to fight injustice, but it’s another to have the strength of body and will to do so.

Bruce first has to prove himself capable. Which he does.

 

Bruce finds an old asian man sitting in a chair when he finally reaches his destination. “Ra’as al Ghul?” he asks. And you’ll notice the man doesn’t answer. He speaks in another language, and Duard translates. I’m not sure exactly what country this is. I get the impression it’s somewhere like Tibet or maybe Nepal.

 

Bruce is asked “What are you seeking?”

“A means to fight injustice. To turn fear against those who prey on the fearful.” Bruce sounds like somebody who has already given a great deal of thought to the answer to that question. We know he’s been seeking this for some time.

 

He presents the flower to Ducard.

 

“To manipulate fears in others, you must first learn to control your own.”

Which seems to make sense.

 

Bruce can barely stand after his climb, but is still expected to defend himself. Ducard is testing him. He learns that Bruce is afraid, but not of him.

Bruce has been in fights with thugs so many times before. He used to that.

When Ducard asks him what he fears, we cut back to that childhood memory. Being rescued from that cave full of bats.

 

We learn here but Bruce did indeed break a bone, so points back for the realism thing. We also see that Rachel’s mother works for Wayne as a maid.

Importantly, we see Bruce hand the rock back to Rachel as they go past.

It seems he’s learned a lesson of sorts through this experience. Maybe life isn’t all about having everything you want, and taking the things you desire from others.

 

His father is trying to impart an important lesson to Bruce. “Why do we fall? So we can pick ourselves back up.” That’s a lesson that adult Bruce has really taken to heart, which is how he’s survived so long in this lifestyle. But he’ll have to re-learn it later.

 

In this scene, we get our first glimpse of Michael Caine as Alfred. Superhero movies are usually cast with unknowns. That makes a lot of sense, especially for the titular heroes. But Christopher Nolan deliberately cast a lot of big name stars in this movie. Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Katie Holmes. 

Nolan’s thinking was, why shouldn’t a superhero movie deserve to have the very best actors available. Of ourse, star power isn’t always directly equal to acting ability, but these actors all do amazing jobs in their roles in this movie.

 

I was a little sceptical about someone as famous as Michael Cain playing Alfred. Would I really be able to see the character through the famous face? But it absolutely worked for me. All these actors sold me on their characters, and after this, I couldn’t imagine anybody else ever playing Alfred. Who could possibly top Michael Cain? Of course, then Jeremy Irons blew me away in Batman V Superman, but that’s another story.

 

Bruce is having recurring nightmares about the bats. They’ve really scared him. His father explains that they attacked him because they were afraid of him. All creatures feel fear - especially the scary ones. This conversation will really shape who and what Bruce will become.

 

And then his father shows him a pearl necklace he plans to give Bruce’s mother. That’s ominous. We know what those pearls mean. Right?

 

The next scnene gives us some great insight into who Thomas Wayne is. He’s not only a good father, he’s a good man. The people of Gotham have been going through hard times. He’s used his money to provide cheap transport for the city, and he’s not above using it himself, by the way. He owns Wayne Enterprises, a big successfully company, but he doesn’t take an active role in running it. Instead, he chooses to spend his time working in a hospital as a doctor. In his own way, Thomas Wayne is a hero. He instilled a lot of values into his son.

 

There’s been one or two interpretations of Thomas Wayne where he’s a corrupt businessman. Not a nice guy at all. And while I appreciate the grittiness of that approach, I prefer this version of Thomas. The idealistic nice guy who established a legacy for Bruce to follow.

 

And notice that Thomas is wearing a tuxedo, and Martha is wearing the pearls. We know what’s coming.

 

The actors in the opera seem to be dressed as bats. It’s freaking poor Bruce out. There’s a little exchange between father and son.

First of all, he says “Can we go?” And that just comes across as any restless child who is bored and wants to leave. My response to that would be a quiet firm “No.” But his face shifts and he says “please” in a pleading kind of way. And Thomas sees what’s really going on inside Bruce. And being the good father he is, Thomas leaves the show, something he probably spent good money on, something he was probably enjoying himself. But for the sake of his child, there’s no question.

 

Martha hasn’t picked up on it the way Thomas did. She asks what is wrong, and Thomas covers for him. I’m not sure exactly why he felt the need to do that. Maybe so as not to embarrass Bruce over his fears. I got another chuckle when Thomas said “A little opera goes a long way, right Bruce.”

 

So they’ve left early and are walking through the alley, and that’s when it happens.

The inevitable moment that defines Bruce’s life.

 

When the mugger appears, Thomas is calm. He’s willing to hand over whatever this guy wants. Again this shows the man’s values. He cares about his family far more than money. And he’s trying to calm the mugger.

 

But when the wallet drops, the mugger gets jumpy.

The mugger wants the jewelly as well. He raises his gun toward Martha.

And suddenly it all happens so fast.

The previously calm Thomas reacts on instinct. It’s not about the pearls. Somebody is pointing a gun at my wife. I must protect her. He stands in front of her.

The sudden movement spooks the mugger and he fires.

It’s all so tragic. They were so close to getting out of this without anybody getting hurt.

 

Somewhere along the way Martha is shot as well.

 

And the poor kid is left there in an ally all alone, next to the dead bodies of his parents.

 

And it’s all because they left early. It’s all because Bruce was afraid of the bats.

That’s got to hurt. This is a good addition to the mythology because it drives that knife even deeper into Bruce’s heart. And it’s that pain that pushes him to become Batman. 

 

The death scene is done pretty well here, but I have to say, after seeing the version Zack Snyder did in Batman V Superman, well, this just can’t compare to that. That haunting music!

And the lack of blood seems to detract from the realism somewhat.

 

We get our first look at Commissioner Gordon, although he won’t be a commissioner at all during this movie. Right now, he’s just a uniform cop. Probably a constable. I don’t know exactly how police ranks work in America. You can tell right away he’s a good cop. He shows a lot of compassion and empathy for Bruce.

 

The detective delivers the good news. They got the guy who did this. But that’s got to be very little comfort to a child who has just lost his parents.

 

One of the Wayne Enterprise executives promises they’ll be watching over the empire until he’s ready. Again, that’s the last thing that Bruce cares about.

 

Bruce breaks down and admits the guilt he’s feeling to Alfred. And we see the beginnings of the father figure that Alfred will be from now on. That’s a dynamic that I really like.

 

Back in the present, Ducard asks Bruce if he still blames himself for his parent’s death. He says that his anger outweighs his guilt. Honestly, I’m not sure which is healthier.

 

Bruce has buried his guilt with that anger, but Ducard is going to help him confront it and face the truth.

 

Next we get something of a training montage. Not quite a montage because there’s snippets of dialogue through it.

 

Bruce has come a long way with his own training, but Ducard will take what he can do and take it to new levels. There are a lot of similarities between Batman, the way he operates, and a ninja. Both use stealth. This movie digs into that and outright makes ninja training a part of Batman’s background. I imagine a lot of this is drawn from comics, but I’m not familiar enough to know exactly what. I’m still pretty early the comics-reading journey I recently started.

 

But it’s all good stuff.

 

One little detail that I love is that during their sword fight, Ducard is wearing armoured spikes on his arms, these are a famous part of Batman’s costume. 

 

There is an emphasis on theatricality and deception. These also lead very naturally into what Batman will be and lend believability to the whole thing that I really appreciate.

 

When Bruce is shown a criminal in a cage, we get some insight into the zero-tolerance that the league of shadows have for crime. Ducard says “criminals thrive in the indulgence of society’s understanding.”

We’ll see shortly the kind of justice that they believe in.

 

The next conversation explores this idea of guilt and blame.

 

Ducards says “Your parents' death was not your fault. It was your father’s. He failed to act.”

Bruce defends his father. “The man had a gun.”

“Would that stop you?”

“I’ve had training.”

“The training is nothing. Will is everything. The will to act.”

 

So Ducard is placing the blame firmly on Thomas, for not having the strength of body and will to stop the mugger.

This is a very interesting perspective.

 

The truth is, there are a thousand different things that contributed to them being there at that moment. Bruce’s desire to leave early, their decision to go to the opera, Thomas’s gift of jewellery to his wife, probably many factors that lead the mugger to choose that particular night, that particular alley.

 

But ultimately, the blame for his crime, in my opinion, has to fall on the mugger. He made the moral choice to steal from these people, and he made the moral choice to kill them. The responsibility for that crime rests on him.

 

There’s another nice quiet character scene with Bruce and Ducard around a campfire. Ducard displays a keen insight into the kind of pain Bruce has at the centre of his life. The anger he has wrapped around the guilt. The way it has affected him. He shares a little of his own story. He knows Bruce’s pain because he shares it, because of the death of his wife.

 

Then he says something important.

“Your anger gives you power, but if you let it, it will destroy you.”

And isn’t that the truth!

 

When Bruce asks what helped Ducard, he says vengeance. And I’m going to have to dispute that one. From what I’ve observed, Vengeance rarely makes people feel better. It doesn’t take away the pain. We talked about this in Stargate Universe when Rush took revenge on Simeon for killing Amanda Perry and Ginn.

 

Bruce says vengeance is no help to him. He asks why Bruce never took revence for his parents.

 

And that leads us to another flashback. Bruce is now a young man, probably just out of his teens. He’s been attending Princeton, which I believe is a pretty high profile university, but he’s back home with Alfred for a hearing. Related to the man who killed his parents. Justice works very slowly. But that’s probably a good thing. If there’s one thing where you don’t want to risk making a mistake, it’s the justice system. Sadly, of course, no matter how slow and careful they are, there are still mistakes made. 

 

Bruce is not returning to Princeton. Apparently, he hasn’t ingratiated himself to the staff there. But he can’t see Wayne Manor as his home either. This is his father’s house. A mausoleum. Alfred doesn’t see it that way. This house has been home to six generations of the Wayne family. Many times, it has passed from parent to child. The child becoming the new master of the home. Moving into the master bedroom is symbolic of that. The only difference is, Thomas’s death happened so young, and so tragically.

 

Bruce doesn’t understand why Alfred cares so much. But Alfred cares very much about this family, and thinks of it as his own. We see the same thing with Jeremy Irons’ Alfred too. Thomas made Alfred responsible for that which was most precious to him. Bruce. Alfred takes that responsibility very seriously.

 

And then we find out why Bruce has little regard for his future. We see what Bruce plans to do. He has a hand gun.

 

But there’s a lot more to it than just wanting revenge for killing his parents. We learn that Rachel works for the DA, and the DA is letting the mugger, Chill, go free. He shared a cell with Carmine Falcone. He’s testifying against that crime boss in exchange for early parole.

So this isn’t the sentencing after all. I Guess justice doesn’t move THAT slowly.

 

This is hard one. I understand why the justice system needs to make deals like this. You reward the small fish for helping you catch the big fish. The truth is, Carmine Falcone is a much greater threat to the safety of the people of Gotham than Chill is. If they can bring down Falcone, then a lot of lives can be saved. A lot of crime can be prevented.

 

But what about Bruce? What about his parents? Where is the justice for them?

That’s why Bruce feels somebody should be there to represent his parents at this hearing. To remind the world that Chill’s crime had consequences. That his crime broke Bruce’s life in a way that can never be repaired.

 

And this is also why he’s planning to take justice into his own hands with that gun.

 

I’m not sure I noticed this when the movie first came out, but watching it now, as a 44 year old, Rachel almost looks too young to be a lawyer. Katie Holmes was famous as a teenage actor in the TV show Dawson’s Creek. I didn’t watch that show at the time, but I saw a little of it with my wife some time later. I’m still very much seeing that teenager in her face here in this movie.

Of course, this movie came out in 2005. It feels like it was just yesterday, but that’s actually 17 years ago. My first child was born in 2005.

Anyway, I guess the moral of that, which I’m trying to say is that Katie Holmes retained her youthful look, so good on her, and … well….I’m getting kind of old.

 

As the DA, makes his case, he mentions a depression. To my knoweldge, the only depression that has occured in the last few centuries, was the great depression between the two world wars. We’ve had a number of recessions, but that’s a lesser thing, right? And depression isn’t something that just affects one city. A depression affects nations. Multiple nations. So that’s a departure from real-world history.

 

Chill speaks of his regret for his crime. Yes, he was desperate, but that doesn’t change what he did. I believe his remorse. It comes across as genuine. After 14 years of paying for the crime, how could you not come to regret it?

 

We all know regret right. I’ve been torn up by regret over all sorts of things. But none of them close to the severity of what Chill did.

 

When the judge announces that a member of the Wayne family is present, and invites Bruce to speak, the actor playing Chill does some great stuff with his face, showing the emotion that the character is feeling in that moment. The shame and guilt. The regret. How do you face the living victim of your murder?

 

But Bruce doesn’t speak. He stands and walks out. And gets his gun ready.

Bruce walks toward Chill, gun hidden in his sleeve, but he never gets the chance. Somebody else shoots Chill dead. No doubt somebody working for Falcone.

 

Bruce and Rachel talk about the difference between justice and revenge. Bruce posits that sometimes they are the same thing. Rachel says that justice is about harmony. Revenge is about making you feel better.

But Bruce points out her impartial system is broken, which, it is. We talked about that, the imperfection of humans.

 

So Rachel decides to give him a real lesson. She takes him into the slums. She shows him the people living in poverty. Falcone floods the streets with violence and drugs. He makes these people desperate. The real villain in Bruce’s story may not be the man who pulled the trigger. It’s Falcone, who made Chill desperate enough to want to steal. (Which obviously doesn’t exonerate Chill for his terrible crime).

Rachel knows exactly where Falcone hangs out. He’s there in that bar every night. But through corruption and threats, he keeps the police at bay. Nobody will touch him. They’re all too afraid.

 

This scene is foundational to Bruce becoming Batman. This movie shows there’s so much more to it than just the death of his parents and training to be a ninja. There’s some real depth to the story in Batman Begins, and I love it.

 

Bruce admits to Rachel that he’s not one of her good people. Shows her the gun. She gives him the slap he deserves. And she’s right. His father would be ashamed of him right now. 

 

So Bruce storms right into Falcone’s bar and walks up to the crime boss.

I like how the first half of this movie uses Falcone as its primary antagonist. In the grand scheme of things, he turns out to be a minor foe for Batman, but at this point in his life, Falcone is an untouchable, insurmountable foe to Bruce.

 

The conversation between Falcone and Bruce is fantastic. More great dialog. Falcone has the kind of power where he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Bruce in the head, right here, in front of cops and judges. That’s power. The power of fear.

 

In a few quick sentences, he reminds Bruce how much he actually does have to lose. Rachel, his butler. He thinks he knows pain, but he knows nothing of desperation. It’s ironic that Falcone is the cause of so much desperation in this city, but he understands it. He lives amongst it. Bruce doesn’t yet comprehend that type of desperation.

 

But as we’ve seen earlier in the movie - he will. 

This encounter with Falcone is the impetus he needs to go and start learning about desperation and fear. To begin his long training toward becoming Batman. So he can be one of Rachel’s good people. A good person who won’t just do nothing.

 

I don’t know if Bruce will ever think of himself as good. He’s too morally gray. But he’s going to stand against the evil that has infested his city.

Like his father did before him, in a very different way.

 

As soon as he’s thrown out of the bar, Bruce begins to shed the trappings of his privileged life. His wallet, his cards. His fancy clothes. He sells his nice coat to a homeless man, exchanging it for a ratty old one.

His journey has begun.

 

During this training, he lost a lot of assumptions about the simple nature of right and wrong. But he never fully gave in to it all. He didn’t become one of them. He stole, but technically, the things he stole belonged to his company anyway. He still had a moral line.

 

So back in the present, Ducard is using drugs to teach Bruce a lesson. He must become more than a man. He must become an idea. He must use fear against his enemies. The drug is from that purple flower that grows on the mountain. It has hallucinogenic properties.

 

Ra’s Al Ghul is satisfied that Bruce has overcome his fear. He’s ready to join the league of Shadows and lead these men. But first, he has to prove his commitment to justice.

 

He has to behead a criminal in front of them all.

But this is one of those lines Bruce has set. He’s not an executioner. He won’t kill this man. That’s not justice. That’s what Rachel tried to teach him.

 

This is where he differs from the League of Shadows. He’ll fight men like this in Gotham. But he won’t kill them.

Ducard brings up a classic objection. “You compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share.”

And Bruce has a good comeback. “That’s why it’s so important. It separates us from them.”

 

Ducard makes a point that Bruce knows well. Legal systems are corrupt. They are often not fit to dispense true justice. Bruce has seen this first hand in Gotham.

The League has turned their sights on Gotham. That city has become so corrupt, it’s time for it to die. And Bruce, as their “Prince” as Falcone called him, “is the perfect one to deliver that justice.” They plan to destroy the entire city. As they believe, this is necessary.

 

And so is born this Batman’s no-kill rule. 

 

I have no problem with this Batman having a no-kill rule. I quite like it. This Bruce still has some idealism left. I like idealism.

I also have no issue with Ben Affleck’s Batman having no such rule. That’s Bruce at a very different time of his life, in a very different situation. Batman has certainly killed before, in comics, and in other movies. Remember that time when Michael Keaton’s Batman casually murdered a minor goon and then cracked a joke over his corpse?

 

Bruce attacks the league to make his escape, burning the temple, and saving Ducard’s life. Because he’s still a good person.

 

Now Bruce is ready to be Batman. It’s time to go home.

Alfred is very happy to see him as he arrives in a private jet.

People need a powerful symbol to shake them up. He can’t do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man, he can be ignored and destroyed, but as a symbol, he can be indestructible.

 

We get a nice little moment of humour as Alfred expresses some concern over his safety with Bruce’s new endeavour. We also learn that Bruce was declared legally dead by the Wayne Enterprise shareholders. They wanted his majority share, but luckily, he left everything to Alfred, who is now a wealthy man in his own right.

The overhead view of the Gotham skyline shows us a very realistic looking city. A place we can well believe exists. A far cry from the gothic cartoonish Gotham we’ve seen in previous Batman movies. This was a breath of fresh air to me. I could never really connect with the setting of the previous movies. The city just felt so overwhelmingly fake and non-real.

 

Now, before we see the birth of Batman, we need to meet a new character, One who will be an important villain in this movie going forward.

Doctor Crane.

The psychologist that gets all of Falcone’s thugs declared insane, and transferred to his care, rather than facing criminal justice.

 

Rachel is onto him, of course, as probably everyone else is. But she’s the only one with the courage to do something about it.

Interestingly, Rachel seems to be taking on something of the role that Jim Gordon generally fills in the comics. The one brave good person who is willing to stand up when everyone else just looks away, either for money, or out of fear.

 

Of course, we see Jim Gordon doing that as well in this movie, but so far, he’s been largely absent.

 

Rachel is warned to back off by one of her colleagues. You can’t take on somebody like that. You just have to pretend it’s not happening.

 

Bruce’s first step is research. And that’s a very Batman quality. Preparation. He needs to know if he’ll have any allies out there. He finds some newspaper clippings about Gordon.

 

And that’s when he sees the bat. And after all that Ducard taught him, he has an idea.

He goes down the well that he fell into as a child, and finds the cave.

 

The cave is very rustic. It’s not a habitable place, as caves generally aren’t. I love the waterfall.

As Bruce stands up, allowing the bats to flap all around him, he finds that he has overcome his fear of them. Now that he has it under control, it’s time to share that fear with his enemies.

 

Despite his bravado, Rachel actually has Crane a little spooked. He has a deal with Falcone. He gets his thugs off the hook, and Falcone brings in a shipment of something for Crane. Falcone is more interested in favours than money, and for somebody like him, that makes a lot of sense. Falcone has plenty of money, but it’s the favours, the connections, that make him who he is. That’s the basis of his power. Other people doing what he wants so he remains untouchable. Anyway, Falcone is gonna take care of Rachel for him.

 

We see in the board meeting, that they are wrestling with the idea of going against the kinds of business practices that Thomas Wayne believed in. One of them argues that after 20 years they should be able to stop thinking about what Thomas Wayne would have done.

And …. In part….. I think he does have a point. Thomas is no longer alive and hasn’t been involved in this company for two decades.  They’re the ones running this business. They need the freedom to take it in their own direction.

 

But, in terms of values, that’s a little different. Thomas Wayne clearly set precedent for the kinds of moral and ethical values that Wayne Enterprises stands for. And those values are something that perhaps should endure. Especially when you’re carrying on the legacy of your founder.

 

Bruce says he’s not here to interfere with the company. He just wants a job to get to know the company his father built. He’s interested in the applied science division.

Of course, he has something of an ulterior motive here.

 

And this is where we get to meet Lucias Fox.

Now as I understand it, this character was created for the movie, and he became so beloved, that they actually added him into the comics. This kind of thing has happened before. Batgirl was first created by the Adam West TV show, and later became part of the comics. Harley Quinn, as well. I think it was an animated series for her.

 

Anyway, I like Lucias Fox, and it’s hard not to when he’s played so warmly by the one and only Morgan Freeman. 

 

Fox is surprised Bruce would want to be here. This division is a dead end, to keep Fox from causing any trouble for the board. A whole bunch of prototype technologies, not in production. Exactly what a young Billionaire needs when he wants to come a superhero vigilante.

 

This scene is great because it legitimises all of Batman gadgets. His suit is an advanced body armour, not used in active duty by the military because it’s too expensive. But perfect for a vigilante who only needs one or two.

 

I’ve often heard the criticism that Batman can’t have body armour any more advanced than what the US Military use in real life because they always have the best that has been invented. I think this scene goes some way to help address that.

 

This is what I was talking about earlier. You find something that’s kind of silly in a superhero’s story. In a movie like this, you either make it feel believable, or you dump it.

 

And that’s the key. Making it feel believable, even if it’s not strictly 100% realistic. That’s not the point. It needs to feel sensible, not silly. It needs to give you enough to help you suspend your disbelief.

 

And for me, Batman Begins does that perfectly.

 

I love how Fox sees completely through Bruce’s excuse. But all this stuff belongs to him. If he wants to use it, why not?

 

Alfred gives us another nice little bit of texture. Back in the civil war, Bruce’s great-great-grandfather was involved in the secret railroad, helping free slaves. The caves under the mansion came in handy. There is already a passage down into them. Another nice touch that adds an extra veneer of believability to this whole thing.

 

Bruce is now making his suit. Painting the body armour and adding the arm spikes he learned about with Ducard.

Alfred helps him figure out the logistics of ordering the materials he needs to assemble everything without raising suspicion.

 

We check back in with Jim Gordon. He’s in an interesting situation. He’s not that courageous good man standing against corruption yet. He refuses to take bribes himself, but he does sit idly by while his partner Flass collects his money.

He even assures Flass that he’s no rat. He won’t tell anyone about the bribes. He’s resigned to the fact that there’s nobody to rat to.

 

Gordon is in a small way still part of the problem. He’s definitely not yet a part of the solution.

 

But Bruce pays him a little visit.

 

I like how on Bruce’s first time out, he doesn’t have the full cowl. He’s just wearing a balaclava. I kind of like it when origin stories do that. The slow build-up to the real suit.

 

Jim needs a little push. It’s not until Bruce tells him about Rachel that he really considers taking a stand himself. Bruce wants to take Falcone down for the drug shipments he brings in each week. The shipments that nobody does anything about.

 

Bruce definitely lacks the elegance we’ll come to expect from Batman as he clumsily falls and crashes around the city. He’s gonna need more stuff from Fox.

 

The memory cloth that will form the basis for Batman’s cape is pure science fiction. But couching it in science fiction terms once again gives it that sensible believability to me.

 

I like the exchange between Bruce and Fox. Fox is happy with the plausible deniability of it all. He knows Bruce is up to something. Bruce knows he knows. They don’t have to keep pretending otherwise.

 

And that’s when Bruce notices the tumbler.

 

I love the tumbler.

 

Designed as a bridging vehicle. They could never get the bridge to work, but the vehicle itself is fine. Perfect for Bruce’s needs.

I love how they introduce the batmobile in this way. I love how you first see it in Army cammo colours, but Bruce asks if it comes in black.

I love everything about the tumbler.

The batmobile is one of the silliest things about batman. That name especially. Thank goodness that term is never spoken aloud in this movie, or in the Synder movies. You don’t need to call it that on screen, it just needs to be present.

I always thought the idea of Batman driving around in a car was pretty silly. But this thing? Now you’re talking!

 

Now, there are some issues with the tumbler in the second movie, which we’ll get to. But just looking at Batman Begins in isolation, this is absolutely perfect.

 

You can see a defined difference between the way Bruce is approaching Falcone now, as opposed to how he did it as a young man. Back then, he was hot-headed. He burst into Falcone’s bar armed with nothing but anger and emotion. And he was humiliated. Now, he’s taking his time. Doing surveillance. No longer a child, Bruce has become a man. There’s still a lot of emotion driving him, of course, but that emotion is no longer in the driver’s seat. Bruce has learned to control it.

 

In reality, this isn’t just a drug shipment. There are drugs, but there’s also something special for Crane.

Flass is actively helping Falcone protect the shipment. And he’s all but offered to kill Rachel.

And this is where we first see Batman in action.

I love this scene.

It takes all the tropes of a horror movie and inverts them. It’s the bad guys that are being terrorised, and Batman is the monster.

In a lot of ways, this scene defined for me, who and what Batman is. I remember playing the Arkham Asylum game. This scene was in my mind as I played that. It impacted how I played the game.

 

The crooks are vanishing one by one. Being taken by something in the shadows. It’s creepy and it’s cool. Possibly the best scene in the movie.

I love when the crook screams “where are you you?” And then we hear that gravelling voice behind him, as an upside-down Batman says “here.”

 

They actually use the “hide the monster” trope here, but in the way I like, not in the way I hate. Because the crooks don’t get a good glimpse of Batman. Not until right at the end, we finally see Batman in all his glory, as he pulls Falcone out of the car.

 

Bruce saves Rachel’s life, and gives her the leverage she needs to get the judge to do the right thing.

 

It seems everything is all wrapped up.

In one night, Batman has taken down Carmine Falcone, something the police in Gotham haven’t been able to do in 20 years.

 

So Falcone is strapped to a massive floodlight. Making the image of a bat on the clouds. It’s this movie’s take on the bat signal.

 

This is a moment that gets criticism. Those floodlights get extremely hot. In reality, Falcone would be burned to a very dead crisp. And I can’t argue against that.

First of all, I’ll point out that this light is hardly at full strength. You can tell just by looking at it that the light is pretty dim.

But then, there’s no way it’d be able to project that image up into the sky to be visible like that.

This scene is a cheat. I’ll admit that.

 

I always found the bat signal pretty silly. I never liked the idea that Gotham police had Batman on speed dial. Gordon, sure. But he needs a much more subtle way of getting in touch with him.

 

I’ll admit this moment doesn’t quite work, but given the overall tone of the rest of this movie, I kinda don’t care.

 

The point is, we’ve established just how powerful Bruce has become, in his new persona. Up until this point, Falcone has been the big bad of the movie. He was the primary villain. And he seemed a very powerful, very intimidating villain. How can one man bring down somebody like that?

 

But Batman has done what that young Bruce could never have conceived of. He’s brought down Falcone, and it feels kind of effortless.

 

Bruce Wayne has come of age. 

But they’ve already laid the seeds of a greater challenge that Batman will face.

This movie actually has an escalating scale of villains, three different levels.

Bruce has just cleared level 1.

 

And the way the movie has done it, taking all of this time to establish Bruce’s journey, it convinces me. The idea of a man dressing up as a bat and running around with a cape at night no longer feels ridiculous and preposterous. The journey has sold it. That’s really important to me.

 

I’ve always been primarily a Superman fan, but looking back, while I’d always liked Batman, I think it was this movie that really made me love Batman. This movie gave me a version I could believe in. This movie finally delivered on the promise that I first saw when they started advertising the 1989 movie on TV.

 

Rachel has a rock-solid case. Batman has given her everything she needs.

 

But the police chief wants Batman off the streets. This is the tension I like. Batman is doing the right thing, he’s getting the job done, and Gordon sees the value in that, but officially speaking, Batman is a criminal, pursued by the police just as much as any of his rogues are. That’s what Batman was designed to be.

 

Alfred has some good advice for Bruce. If he’s going to live this double life, he’s going to have to put some effort into his Bruce Wayne persona as well. Just as Supermam cultivates an akward nerdy Clark Kent, Batman needs to cultivate a frivolous playboy Bruce Wayne to throw people off his scent.

Now we introduce a new but important element. A microwave generator has been stolen from Wayne Enterprises. Designed for desert warfare, it vaporises an enemy’s water supply.

This is more science fiction. But again, I’m okay with science fiction. This is still a superhero movie, after all. And that’s what this movie does so right. You establish the silly elements of the story in a believable sensible way, and then you have room to suspect disbelief over things like this. I don’t mind a little science fiction, in fact, I welcome it. What I don’t want is silliness and cheese. That’s why when people criticise the realism of elements like this, I think they’re missing the point.

 

Bruce’s appearance at the hotel, with the weird skinny-dipping ladies goes a good way to establishing Bruce as a frivolous playboy, the last person you’d expect to be Batman. Why those women decided to get naked and hop in the water feature I’ll never comprehend. Maybe Bruce paid them to do so.

 

Bruce is willing to be seen in this light in order to protect his true self.

But there’s one person whose good opinion he doesn’t want to lose.

Rachel.

He tries to tell her, without telling her. “Inside, I am more.”

But she’s not buying it.

“It’s not what you are underneath, it’s what you do that defines you.”

And this is a very thematic statement for the whole movie.

I partially agree with what Rachel says here. While, I think we are defined by more than just what we do, What she’s getting at is the whole idea of putting your money where your mouth is.

You can have the best of intentions inside, but if your actions don’t match your intentions, then those intentions aren’t worth much, are they?

It actually reminds me of James chapter 2 in the Bible. Faith without actions is dead.

 

Falcone wants Crane to get him off on the insanity plea, just as he has with his goons. But more than that. He wants in one whatever Crane and his mysterious boss are up to.

 

But this is the moment that Crane replaces Falcone as the primary villain. Crane gases Falcone and Falcone goes genuinely insane from whatever is in that gas.

 

It’s obvious at this point, that Crane is the Batman villain Scarecrow.

 

And this is the moment it really becomes a comic book movie. Weird gas that makes people go crazy?

But because everything has been established in such a grounded sensible way up until now, I’m willing to buy it, I mean fully buy into it.

 

We won’t be seeing Falcone again. He’s done with. But we’ve learned how sinister Crane is. He’s doing experiments with his patients, using whatever was in that shipment Falcone brought him.

 

Bruce already knows some of the shipments went elsewhere. He wants to know where. He’ll get it out of Flass. Which he does. Batman is a pretty effective interrogator. And Flass is a coward.

 

So he tracks the shipment to Crane. The shipment is what he uses to make that gas, not to mention the microwave generator. We see that the gas amplifies people’s fears. Makes them see what they’re afraid of.

 

Bruce jumps out of a window many stories up, while on fire. And miraculously survives the fall without even a broken bone. That’s not realistic. I call valid criticisms on this moment. But the funny thing is, they have their explanation for that. The memory cloth can turn his cape into a glider. Why didn’t this scene use that device?

 

Under the influence of the gas, Bruce becomes that scared helpless little boy again.

He cries out to Alfred for help. And of course, Alfred is there for him.

 

Bruce recognises the hallucinogen. He’s felt it before, but this is more concentrated. Weaponised.

 

Fox has invented an antidote.

 

Bruce is supposed to have a birthday party tonight, but Rachel is heading to Arkham Asylum to figure out what’s going on with Falcone. And she’s gonna need backup from Batman to keep her safe.

 

Why does Crane show Rachel the truth of his whole operation?

I know he drugs her afterwards, but why show her what he’s doing?

He’s pouring that hallucinogen into the city water supply.

 

Batman crashes the party and uses Crane’s own gas on him. I love how he sees Batman as a weird human/bat hybrid creature. The gas allows this movie to do some crazy sci-fi/fantasy looking stuff that would otherwise not fit in a movie like this at all.

And we learn that Crane’s mysterious boss is none other than Ra’s Al Ghul. But isn’t he dead? Didn’t he die when that temple turned?

 

Bruce calls in the bats presumably using pheremons to attract them, so he can get away wtih Racel, to give her the antidote. Not sure the bats would smell the pheromones from that distance, though.

 

This is when we first get to see the Tumbler in action.

Bruce uses the bridging vehicle’s ability to jump to his advantage.

 

There are a couple of moments of humour that work for me in the chase.

It’s a pretty cool action scene. Anyway, he gets Rachel to the cave in time to the cave, where Fox has left the antidote waiting.

 

Crane has dumped his entire supply of this stuff into the water supply. Been doing it for weeks. But it hasn’t affected anyone because it needs to be absorbed through the lungs. So why dump it in the water?

 

Crane is in custody. Bruce uses Rachel to get the antidote to Gordon so he can protect himself and mass produce it.

 

Level 2 cleared.

The final ultimate villain will soon be fully revealed.

 

Alfred is concerned that Bruce is losing himself in this monster. Bruce argues he’s using the monster to help others. But this can’t be personal or else he’s just a vigilante.

 

The mansion is full of guests. Bruce wants to get rid of them. There’s too much going on right now. Alfred doesn’t want Bruce to destroy his father’s name. It’s all that’s left of him. The playboy persona is one thing. But Thomas’s legacy is important and shouldn't be tarnished.

And, Bruce agrees, for now.

 

Fox figures it out. The microwave emitter would allow somebody to disperse the toxin into the air supply. He’s just been fired for asking too many questions about it.

 

And now we meet the final boss. The true villain of this entire movie. Bruce is introduced to a Mr. Ra’s Al Ghul. It’s Ducard. He was Ra’s all along. The man Bruce watched die was just a decoy.

 

Bruce wants Ra’s to let the guests go. They’re innocent. His only reply “You can explain the situation to them.”

And so, in order to save their lives, he must offend them. Dragging his father’s name through the mud. They’ll never know what he sacrificed to save their lives.

 

Crane’s toxin was derived from the blue flowers on the mountain. He wasn’t a member of the league of shadows, just a pawn.

Ra’s plans to vaporise the toxin and watch Gotham tear itself apart.

He said near the start of the movie that he planned to destroy Gotham. He was serious.

The League of Shadows has been a check against human corruption for thousands of years. They sacked rome, released plague rats, and burned London to the ground. When a civilisation reaches the peak of decadence, they come in to return the balance.

 

But you can’t fight evil with evil.

They may think they’re the good guys, but they’ve murdered billions of innocent people along the way.

Bruce believes Gotham isn’t worth saving. He wants more time.

Ra’s rgues the very fact they’ve been able to do what they’re doing is proof of its corruption.

 

We’re seeing here that everything from the start of the movie is coming full circle. It’s almost poetic. I love it.

 

As his goons burn the mansion to the ground, Ra’s drops another bombshell. They tried to destroy Gotham in the past, through economics. Create so much hunger that everyone becomes a criminal. See them rip themselves apart.

 

But Bruce’s parents got in the way of that plan, by helping alleviate the poverty where they could. It was Ra’s al Ghul who created the circumstances that lead to his parent’s death.

Falcone was only a piece of that.

 

We see here how alike Bruce and his father are. Both, in Ra’s opinion, are misguided idealists trying to save the city that deserves to be destroyed. There’s a lot of symmetry in this movie, and I love it.

 

Alfred saves Bruce from the burning house.

Bruce feels he’s destroyed everything his father left behind, but Alred reminds us what we’ve just learned. The Wayne legacy isn’t bricks and mortar. It’s that idealism that tries to save Gotham. Ultimately, Thomas failed, and now so has Bruce.

And then that line from his childhood returns. “Why do we fall?” 

“So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

 

I think Thomas would be proud to see what a fine father figure Alfred has become.

 

Ra’s activates the microwave generator and the gas bursts out of the ground. Right under the narrows - the worst part of Gotham.

 

Fortunately, Gordon has the antidote.

 

Everything has gone to hell.

All the riot cops are on the island already, and they’ve been affected by the gas.

There’s nobody left to send. And just as Commissioner Loeb says that, the tumbler bursts through the air behind him. That’s a very effective shot. Love it.

 

The monorail follows the path of the water mains. They’re gonna load the generator on the train and infect the entire city.

 

Batman is going into battle. He may die. Rachel at least wants to know his name.

He replies with that same line “It’s not what I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.”

And this, of course, has a double meaning. In one sense, it means, it doesn’t matter what my identity is under this suit. It only matters that I’m trying to help.

But, of course, by using that phrase, he’s letting her know exactly who he is.

 

The shot of Batman gliding in like a giant bat and landing is awesome.

 

A lot of people are getting infected while Bruce struggles to catch the train. More with every metre.

This brings us to the climactic fight scene.

It’s suitably tense. I like it.

Gordon uses the tumbler to take out part of the monorail.

It’s interesting that ultimately he’s the one that saves the day. Bruce is there to make sure Ra’s doesn’t go on to cause havoc another day.

 

And now we reach that controversial moment. Has Bruce finally learned to let go of his compassion? Ra’s asks.

“I won’t kill you, but I don’t have to save you.”

Many people feel this is a betrayal of the “no-kill” rule that Bruce established for himself early in the movie.

And strictly speaking, it is.

Bruce is cutting that moral hair mighty thin.

 

But I don’t see this as a negative to the movie. Bruce is a morally gray character. This is when he really steps into that. This is why he and Superman never get on, because they are different. Yes, Batman may be an idealist compared to the likes of Ra’s al ghul, but he’s not as cut and dry as Superman. And even Superman is forced into some of those gray areas, which I’m also fine with.

 

The train is stopped, and Ra’s al ghul is finally dead.

But there’s still a lot of people out there who will need that antidote. A lot are gonna get hurt and killed before they get it.

It’s Batman. It’s messy.

 

The next scene is very satisfying. The company went public, but Bruce bought up most of the shares through various charities and trusts. He’s placed Lucious Fox in charge as the new CEO, the previous one, who fired Fox, is out.

 

Rachel comes to see Bruce, who she has newfound respect for. Bruce thanks her for giving him that first lesson that started him on his journey of transformation.

 

Now that she knows the type of man Bruce truly is, she’s started to hope.

They grew up as childhood friends, but there’s a lot more between them than just friendship. They’ve loved each other for years, in some form. The movie probably could have done a better job of portraying that romantic undercurrent of their relationship, though.

But there’s a problem. Bruce has changed. He’s a good man, but the real Bruce that she remembered is gone. Maybe he’ll come back someday when Gotham no longer needs the Batman.

And that line perfectly sets up the primary conflict of the next movie.

 

Bruce is going to rebuild his father’s house, but it might be a good opportunity to do some work on the foundations.

 

The bat signal re-appears at the end. Gordon is going to use it when he wants to summon Batman. There’s a lot of trouble still out there. 

Gordon teases the villain of the next movie by mentioning a thief and murdurer who leaves a calling card - a joker.

 

And the credits roll.

 

This movie changed everything. It created a new era for DC comics movies, and started the journey that would eventually lead us to the Snyder Cut.

 

Without Batman Begins, there would be no Man of Steel. No Batman V Superman.

 

This movie presented a new way of portraying superheroes. They were no longer something to laugh at or make fun of. They were something to take seriously.

 

This movie made realistic, those things it could, which made the speculative elements all the more easy to accept. It was a perfect balance.

 

It’s like Christpher Nolan reached into my soul and said “Let’s create the perfect Batman movie for Adam Collings.”

 

There was a lot in this movie. Heaps to talk about.

And there’ll be plenty more to talk about next time, in a movie I’ve actually only ever seen once. The Dark Knight.

 

Have a great two weeks,

Live long and prosper,

Make it so.