Product Description

Batman Begins explores the origins of the Batman legend and the Dark Knight's emergence as a force for good in Gotham. In the wake of his parents' murder, disillusioned industrial heir Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) travels the world seeking the means to fight injustice and turn fear against those who prey on the fearful. He returns to Gotham and unveils his alter-ego: Batman, a masked crusader who uses his strength, intellect and an array of high tech deceptions to fight the sinister forces that threaten the city.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #223 in DVD
• Brand: BALE,CHRISTIAN
• Released on: 2005-10-18
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 140 minutes

Amazon.com
Batman Begins discards the previous four films in the series and recasts the Caped Crusader as a fearsome avenging angel. That's good news, because the series, which had gotten off to a rousing start under Tim Burton, had gradually dissolved into self-parody by 1997's Batman & Robin. As the title implies, Batman Begins tells the story anew, when Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) flees Western civilization following the murder of his parents. He is taken in by a mysterious instructor named Ducard (Liam Neeson in another mentor role) and urged to become a ninja in the League of Shadows, but he instead returns to his native Gotham City resolved to end the mob rule that is strangling it. But are there forces even more sinister at hand?

Cowritten by the team of David S. Goyer (a veteran comic book writer) and director Christopher Nolan (Memento), Batman Begins is a welcome return to the grim and gritty version of the Dark Knight, owing a great debt to the graphic novels that preceded it. It doesn't have the razzle dazzle, or the mass appeal, of Spider-Man 2 (though the Batmobile is cool), and retelling the origin means it starts slowly, like most "first" superhero movies. But it's certainly the best Bat-film since Burton's original, and one of the best superhero movies of its time. Bale cuts a good figure as Batman, intense and dangerous but with some of the lightheartedness Michael Keaton brought to the character. Michael Caine provides much of the film's humor as the family butler, Alfred, and as the love interest, Katie Holmes (Dawson's Creek) is surprisingly believable in her first adult role. Also featuring Gary Oldman as the young police officer Jim Gordon, Morgan Freeman as a Q-like gadgets expert, and Cillian Murphy as the vile Jonathan Crane. --David Horiuchi

Batman at Amazon.com

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Stills from Batman Begins (click for larger images)

From The New Yorker
And ends with a whimper. Christopher Nolan, working with a screenplay that he wrote with David S. Goyer, has attempted a literal-minded myth of creation. The orphaned young Bruce Wayne (a gloomy Christian Bale) undergoes an initiation in some nameless Asian snow-capped mountains, where he's trained by a morally ambiguous adjunct (Liam Neeson) to a shadowy ninja vigilante leader (Ken Watanabe). Neeson, wearing a pointy little beard, keeps knocking Bale down as he says such things to him as "To conquer fear you must become fear." The screenplay sounds as if it were written after a course in self-realization taken on Santa Monica Boulevard, and the direction is both pompous and cheesy, with ridiculous plot developments and lots of whirling movement shot so close that we can't really see anything. Gotham is no longer a malignant paradise of evil; it's just dark. With Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine wasted in poorly written roles as Batman's allies.-David Denby -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Serious batman
In this latest batman installment forgot the past because it's dead. Director Chris Nolan takes this genre into a new direction. Christian Bale is spot on as a believable gritty force that literally puts fear into criminals. All other actors' delivery honorable performances expect for Katie Holmes who is flat from start to finish.
No campy one liners and cheesy fight scenes in this blockbuster. The fighting is hard hitting and visceral. The writing is original and full of laughs. This isn't a story where you can guess what is going to happen next. You're taken on a ride and when it stops you'll be begging for more.

Side Note: Isn't a comic book movie but a great action/drama based on a comic book movie. Good flick whether or not fans of the comic book.

Batman Begins
The product was excellent and the transaction was fast, accurate and flawless. It is a great product with prompt, couteous service.

Great price on a good movie
I bought this movie for basically the same price it would have cost me to rent it, so I cannot complain. I am not going to offer you a review of the movie, there are better places to find that; I am just going to recommend that, if you like this movie or think you might like this movie at all, it is better to buy it at this price then to rent it for a buck less.