Batman Reborn

I don't often write out and out disclaimers. That said: Disclaimer -- I wrote this after an eerie confluence of events [freak summer storm and bad seafood] left me shivering in the dark with no internet, stomach in knots, curled fetally in an uncomfortable faux leather chair for the better part of 24 hours with a deadline looming. Less horrible on its own merits than horrible next to the article [only realized in my brain] I wanted to write.

Still, it touches on some things I'd like to talk about. So please do.

Batman, from it's earliest incarnations as a pulp comic in the 1930's, has been about fear. Five feature length movie adaptations in, Hollywood types have finally seemed to figure that out. Credit capitalism and the realization that obsessive 30-something comic readers are a tremendously powerful demographic who don't like being condescended to. Credit also the notion that blockbusters needn't be vapid and riddled with plot holes to attract crowds.

But before we get into all that, let's talk some more about fear.

I have fears of my own, as we all do. One of them is a recurring nightmare. It is a nightmare much like the ones that haunt Bruce Wayne after that fateful plunge into a well led more or less directly to his parent's death.

Mine goes like this, ever the same: Two women are perched next to each other, on stools. The younger and prettier of the two is asking her older, more ornately-dressed, vigorously-implanted and ornately-jeweled colleague questions I can't hear. The older, weighed down my countless strings of faux-pearls, gushes visibly about this topic and that. Finally, the young woman asks a question I can hear: "tell me about the . . ." She pauses, looking a little embarrassed and devious, "nipples."

The old woman looks about to jump from her skin with joy. "Oh God, I saw it. The batsuit has nipples! Nipples and a huge codpiece!" Her tone shifts, turning confessional: "This new Batman is all about sex and being sexy."

Violence on television doesn't scar children, Entertainment Tonight does.

No, Joel Schumacher, Batman isn't about sex and any attempt to sexy him up makes for an absurd and ill-wrought hodgepodge of innuendo and pointless homoerotic speculation [See: Batman Forever; See Also: Batman and Robin]. Even if Batman were gay it would not be the defining crisis of his life. He'd never have to come out to his parents, because they're dead. He'd never worry about the acceptance of his peers because, if given the chance, Bruce Wayne would never hang out with anyone. He'd sit around brooding in the day time, probably in a cave somewhere. Then, at night, he'd go out and beat the piss out of purse-snatchers to assuage his guilt. He might have random, impersonal sex to assuage his Batlibido, but he'd do that straight too.

Thankfully Batman Begins trades codpieces for Kevlar and rubberized nipple-like protrusions for an obsessive and candid exploration of Batman's genesis. Director Christopher Nolan [Memento] and writer David S. Goyer [the Blade trilogy] set a perfect tone early, and take the time to explore the intricacies of the character from his driving, formative neuroses to the discovery of the Batcave and the vagaries of prototyping the Batsuit.

They correctly understand that Batman's two greatest abilities are his recklessness and his tremendous buying power.

Of the four actors who have now played Batman, Bale is the best at expressing Wayne's consumptive, internalized grief. Where previous actors and scripts have played Batman like the ultimate bane on any kind of social life, Bale helps suggest the opposite is true, that dealing with Gotham's idle rich is the curse. That characterization, given the circumstances, feels much more authentic.

Watching Bale try to fit in with the upper crust, affecting that haughty air and playboy demeanor is a fish-out-of-water experience that Nolan deliberately makes surreal with pacing and simple sight gags. This is neither the life Bruce lives, nor the one he wants.

The trial and error process Wayne and Alfred go through to test and retest their designs is wonderfully archival, adding further to Batman's humanity in general. This has been the most interesting aspect of the Batman paradigm, the super hero with no super powers, and Nolan and Goyer bring that aspect to light for the first time.

Beneath the growth of Batman as a symbol, and as a technically achievable crime-stopping force, is Bruce's internal growth, from a youth blindly striking out at elusive revenge to a young adult refining and grappling with the nature of justice. It's no simple task, differentiating between the two, and this tension lurks throughout the film, informing and adding emotion to each encounter with evil.

The most satisfying moment, though, comes near the end. After a climactic fight and clever planning, Batman overpowers and outthinks his nemesis, leaving him hurtling toward death. At the moment of recognition, when the nemesis realizes his life is rapidly waning, he closes his eyes and sets his jaw. He doesn't scream or run or curse the name of Bruce Wayne. There's no fist shaking, only cold realization. And fear.

Most big-budget movies can't be bothered to even create a coherent plot. It's wonderfully edifying to see Nolan and Goyer craft a story so tight that it not only
reins in all of its many plot lines, it even manages to bring its thematic elements and image patterns full circle. When this happens it feels like closure. Catharsis. Things I desperately needed after the bat nipples.

In the preceding two and a half hours, I knew I was being entertained by a good and faithful comic book movie. In that moment--jaw set, eyes closed--I realized I was watching a great film.