Review for Batman Begins / The Dark Knight - Triple Play

Introduction

I did it again! The Dark Knight Rises came out on home video, and seeing as I’d just bought a Blu-ray player recently, I decided to get that, and upgrade the first two films in the trilogy to Blu at the same time. The obvious choice was the trilogy collection, which had come out at the same time as the individual movie release. But it actually worked out cheaper to buy the third movie by itself, and get the first two in the twinpack release. They turned up a few days later, and I put them all to one side, resolving to watch them at the earliest opportunity. Now that opportunity has arrived, some two years on, and I noticed that the trilogy pack was recently on sale for under ten pounds, less than half what I originally paid. Of course if I bought the set now, I wouldn’t get to watch it until 2016!

Apparently, director Christopher Nolan asked a question that could only be asked of this comic book superhero, what if Batman was real. All the other comic book heroes have super powers, have been bitten by radioactive spiders, or come from alien planets. Trappings of the comic books and films aside, Batman is fundamentally human, a vigilante, albeit one backed up with the boundless fortune of his alter ego Bruce Wayne. So the question becomes, what would it take for a man to become a vigilante in this world, what would make him don a batlike costume and hunt criminals by night, how would the trappings of Batman, the utility belt, the Batmobile, all these things actually work in the real world? Suddenly it becomes less of a comic book movie, and more an examination of character, of vigilantism, of the whole philosophy of crime and punishment itself. Forget the gothic nature of Burton’s movies, forget the Dark Knight comic books, this becomes true darkness, the darkness in the human soul. And in the Dark Knight, Nolan looks at the other side of the coin, the driving force behind a personification of villainy with Heath Ledger’s jaw-dropping portrayal of The Joker.

Batman Begins

Bruce Wayne is a man haunted by his past, yet uncertain of his future. As a boy he was orphaned when a street robbery went wrong, and it was left to the family butler Alfred to raise him. Trying to understand that which had torn apart his life, Bruce immersed himself in the underworld, and somehow wound up in prison at the roof of the world. It’s there that he comes to the attention of a man named Ducard, who offers him focus in his life, to train in a monastery under Ra's Al Ghul, to join the League of Shadows, to become part of the force that brings justice at any cost. Bruce has other plans. He’s found the direction in his life that he was looking for. He will become Gotham’s protector, a permanent symbol where men are impermanent. He will take on the form of that which struck fear into him as a child, and he will use that fear against his enemies. And he will root out the corruption that taints Gotham City. He will become the Batman, a creature of the night, the bane of the criminal fraternity. Of course for such an endeavour, he’ll need some pretty nifty kit. It’s a good thing that he’s a billionaire then.


The Dark Knight

The Batman’s crusade against crime is having an effect in Gotham. It has to be, now that the criminal fraternity are more scared of being out at night, than in daylight. More importantly, it means that the mob is having fewer and fewer options when it comes to moving their money. And while an unofficial partnership between Gotham’s finest and a masked vigilante may be publicly frowned upon, it’s results that count. All the city needs is one more result, and a public defender strong enough to deliver that result. That man is the new district attorney Harvey Dent, and it looks as if with Batman’s help, he’ll close down the mob in Gotham once and for all. Which is when the Joker appears. It’s like a natural response to a masked vigilante operating outside the law, albeit with a moral code; a psychopathic criminal cloaked in face-paint with no code at all. He doesn’t even care about money, all he cares about is mayhem, and he’s just declared war on the city, the justice system, and Batman...

Picture

Batman Begins gets a 2.40:1 widescreen transfer at 1080p, which as you would expect from such a recent film, is top-notch. The image is clear and colourful throughout, rich in detail levels with excellent contrast, essential for a film and a subject that is all about darkness. Once again, I have to evaluate a Blu-ray transfer that I can’t find fault with. Gotham City gets a very realistic, if slightly tweaked look to it. It could very much be any city in the world, but there’s just enough of a drift away from reality to make it a plausible world for the Batman. The action sequences and stunts are spectacular, and unlike many modern blockbusters, are filmed in-camera instead of with composites of CGI and green screen. The close up hand-to-hand combat is usually obscured in darkness, but for once that isn’t a cause for complaint, Batman is a creature of the night after all.

The Dark Knight gets a variable geometry transfer with 2.40:1 1080p for much of the film and 1.78:1 cropped from the original 1.44:1 for the IMAX sequences. It’s a transfer comparable to the first film, with a smidge of moiré on a shirt fabric in one scene the only niggle that I spotted. The Dark Knight is notable for a larger portion of the film shot in daylight, and a greater prevalence of location filming compared to the first film. But it’s a similar experience.

Sound

Audio for Batman Begins comes in Dolby True HD 5.1 English, DD 5.1 English, French, German, Italian and Spanish with subtitles in those languages, plus Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Swedish. It’s all as you would expect from a summer action blockbuster, suitably resonant and full blooded a surround track, although I had to nudge the volume up a bit higher than where the Home Cinema usually lives. The dialogue is as clear as you would expect given Christian Bale’s rasp as Batman and some of the characters’ tendencies to whisper and understate. Incidentally, the dialogue is pretty choice as well, with plenty of memorable lines and witticisms, as well as an overall depth and intelligence to the plot. The music suits the film well, if not immediately memorable and iconic. But I have to admit the thunderous heartbeat motif that heralds Batman certainly is effective and unique. It’s a visceral emotive approach to music and sound design that certainly is a distinctive selling point of the film.

For the Dark Knight, you also get Dolby True HD 5.1 and DD 5.1 English, but this time the additional audio languages are Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Russian, Thai, Turkish, and Ukrainian, plus a DD 2.0 English Audio Descriptive track. Subtitles are in these languages, plus Arabic, Indonesian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Estonian, Slovenian, Greek, Hebrew, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Serbian. Once again you get a thunderous and effective surround track, with the action sequences even more emphatic and throaty than the first film. In fact, I found that The Dark Knight is another recent film that suffers from whisper bang syndrome; the dialogue is set so low that you have to strain to hear it, while the action sequences are so loud that you jump out of your seat. I don’t appreciate having to drive the volume control through the movie to avoid waking my neighbours up.

Extras

This is the triple play twin-pack, with the probably expired digital versions of the film, Blu-ray discs (one for Batman Begins, two for the Dark Knight), and DVD movie only discs, so 5 discs in total. You get two Blu-ray Amaray style cases with hinged central panels for the extra discs, all held in a card slipcover.


Batman Begins

The disc goes straight to movie, defaulting to Dolby Digital English. There is no main menu, just a pop-up menu, although after the end of the movie, the pop-up menu is displayed against a still from the film.

Prominent in the extra features is a 6:36 IMAX preview of The Dark Knight, sort of redundant in a twin pack that contains both movies.

Batman Begins also has a Bonusview feature that offers picture in picture interviews and artwork as a commentary to the film. The cast and the crew contribute, and if like me, you can’t be asked to change your Blu-ray player settings to activate secondary audio each time a disc with Bonusview appears, you’ll be glad to hear that the PiP content is subtitled.

The rest of the extra content is basically repeated from the DVD 2-disc release.

Additional Footage offers the Easter Eggs from that disc, small featurettes on writing, digital characters, and stunts.

The Theatrical Trailer is here, but in SD.

Everything else is bundled in the Behind the Story category, although I don’t recall seeing the Tankman Returns MTV Movie Awards spoof (5:12) on the DVD. And having watched it now, I’m glad it was left off there. Have these things ever been funny?


The Journey Begins lasts 14:16, and has director Christopher Nolan, writer David S. Goyer, and production designer Nathan Crowley talking about the creation and genesis of the film, and the casting of Batman/Bruce Wayne.

Cape and Cowl lasts 8:18, and looks at the creation of the iconic Batman costume.

Gotham City Rises lasts 12:48, and explores the creation of the city, the massive sets that were constructed, and the building of the Batcave.

Path to Discovery focuses on the pre-Batman sequence in the film, taking us behind the scenes of the shoot in Iceland, doubling for Bhutan. This lasts 14:14

Shaping Mind & Body lasts 12:49, and looks at the specific fighting technique used by Batman, and how it was chosen to represent the brutality of violence, instead of opting for the ubiquitous wire-fu that so permeates Hollywood action these days.

Genesis of the Bat lasts 14:53 minutes, and looks at those Batman stories that directly inspired this film, taken from the previous 70 years of literary heritage.

The Tumbler is a 13:46 featurette investigating the new look Batmobile designed and created for this film, again coming from a realistic perspective, it also shows how the designers built and crafted a robust vehicle that stood up to all the punishment that the filmmakers could throw at it.

Finally for the featurettes there is Saving Gotham City, a 13:01 featurette that looks at the climax of the film and how it was accomplished with one eye on realism.

You’ll also find an Art Gallery that looks at the promotional imagery used for the film in all territories, as well as Confidential Files that look at Batman’s Allies, Enemies and Gadgets. These last two are in HD, but everything else is in SD.


The Dark Knight

This disc too goes straight to the movie, defaulting to DD 5.1 English, and once again there’s no main menu screen, just a still image against which the pop-up menu is displayed after the film ends.

The sole extra on this disc is Gotham Uncovered: Creation of a Scene, 18 featurettes which you can watch separately as a 1:04:10 block, or during the film as white rabbit featurettes. It’s a look at the making of the film, the majority of the clips focusing on the stunt sequences, but a few on the music and the film’s genesis.

The rest of the extras are on disc 2, all presented in HD.

Behind the Story – Batman Tech lasts 45:59 and takes a look at Batman’s toys and gadgets, and how they are derived from real world technology, and also the history of his paraphernalia through the comic books.

Behind the Story – Batman Unmasked: The Psychology of the Dark Knight, gets some psychologists and other mental health professionals in to take a look at what makes Bruce Wayne tick, and also just how they would categorise the various villains he’s faced down the years. This lasts 46:02

In Extras you’ll find Gotham Tonight, 6 mock news reports set in the fictional metropolis prior to and during the events of the film. You can watch them separately or in one 46:41 chunk.

You’ll also find 4 galleries here, with Joker Cards, Concept Art, Poster Art and Production Stills.

Finally there are three trailers and 6 TV Spots for The Dark Knight.

Conclusion

These are two very enjoyable films, a wonderful reinvention of a beloved comic book character by director Chris Nolan, who makes a realistic appraisal of the Batman story. What if it happened in the real world? Of course as I noted in my review of the Batman Begins DVD, it has to be a slightly skewed aspect of the real world where Gotham is practically a city state, where its police are so corrupt and ineffectual that with no external assistance possible, they come to rely on a masked vigilante. Chris Nolan’s Batman movies aren’t really about realism of narrative so much as they are about realism of character, for once getting inside these comic book heroes and villains and seeing what makes them tick.

Batman Begins really delves into the origin of the Batman, for once looking at the intervening years between Bruce Wayne’s orphaning, and his donning of the cape and cowl. It’s a story that hasn’t seen much development on screen, and the way the film unfolds is engaging and gripping. However, this being the third time I watched it, the pace does start to sag at points, although it’s less about Batman and Bruce Wayne, as it is the supporting characters. Carmine Falcone just isn’t the charismatic villain to challenge Batman; while Katie Holmes’s dippy Rachel Dawes is the one genuine weak point in the film. The third time I watched it, I wanted Batman Begins to have a smidge more energy, to emphasise its dramatic beats a little more.


No such problems with The Dark Knight, which on this re-watch is even more impressive than the first time I watched it. One minor change, but an effective one is recasting Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes, finally a character with bite, screen presence, and believable as a potential love interest for both Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent, as well as a strong capable professional herself. The big change is that this is no longer an origin story, we get straight into the thick of things, with the Batman roaming the city, cleaning it of its more wretched aspects, and we also get straight to the meat of the story, the city mob, with Gordon, Dent, and Batman combining strengths to bring it down, once and for all.

Of course what makes the movie is the villain of the piece, the Joker as re-invented by Heath Ledger. So much has been said about his portrayal of the character that it hardly bears reiterating here. For so long, fans had thought that Jack Nicholson’s Joker was the definitive screen portrayal, but in retrospect you have to wonder whether it was the Jack Nicholson in that Joker that people appreciated more. Now, Heath Ledger is the definitive Joker, and will probably remain so in the eyes of fans, until the next definitive screen portrayal of the character. That won’t be for some time yet, as Ledger’s Joker is a Joker for our age, genuinely scary, psychopathic, and deranged. Like the best screen villains, he’s mesmerising to watch, but you wouldn’t want to be anywhere near him.

Once again, director Chris Nolan grounds the film and especially the Joker in realism. He may have a flair for the theatrical, is ready with a witty one-liner, but this Joker remains grounded in reality, he’s certainly no pantomime villain, the clown make-up is roughly applied, the trademark purple suit is grubby and worn, this is a Joker that can blend in as much as he stands out. Harvey Dent too is a charismatic character, a strong, forthright and passionate District Attorney, who’s charmingly out of his depth when introduced to Bruce Wayne’s elite circle, but whose passion for justice is perverted when he suffers the accident that turns him into Two Face, again one of the most horrific screen portrayals of the character, certainly putting Tommy Lee Jones into the shade. Once again, the film’s stunts are pretty much accomplished in-camera, and CGI is kept to a minimum, while there’s even more in the way of location shooting than in the first film. But little slivers of unreality are beginning to sneak into the re-imagined Batman universe; I just don’t buy the Batpod unfolding from the front axle of the Batmobile, while the mobile phone sonar app actually pulls me out of the movie.


A couple of small niggles aside, The Dark Knight is still an awesome film, and that’s really down to Heath Ledger’s Joker. That character will be a hard act to follow, when I finally get around to watching The Dark Knight Rises. While the weaknesses in Batman Begins are now becoming more apparent, this is still a worthy boxset of the first two movies, and it is still available at a bargain price in some buckets.