Dan Slott · @DanSlott
10th Jul 2012 from Twitlonger
.@robertelessar Disclaimer: I think THE DARK KNIGHT is one of the BEST super heroes ever made.
Conversely, I think BATMAN BEGINS is 1 of the worst.
Yes. That's right. 1 of the worst.
Because it is so PERFECT all the way through (except for the confusing and hard to follow fight scenes). And then they BLOW IT at the end. That drives me crazier than if it had been consistently bad the whole way through.
How do they blow it?
BATMAN does NOT save the day.
Who saves the day? Commissioner Gordon in the Batmobile (the Batmobile that Lucius Fox's team built). This, structure-wise, takes BATMAN out of the loop for SAVING GOTHAM CITY! That's INSANE! He's the hero of the piece-- he should be the one to save everyone.
Instead, he's off to the side in a fight against RAS. If that fight were taken out of the movie, everyone in Gotham would still be okay. BAD, BAD, BAD STORY STRUCTURE! HORRIBLE!
And, on TOP of all that, his fight against RAS goes AGAINST the "hero's journey" of the ENTIRE FILM! From the moment Bruce Wayne walks into that court room with the gun-- and then Rachel slaps him and tells him how much his parents would be ASHAMED of him-- Bruce's "hero's quest" is simple and elegant-- not ONLY must he become the hero (Batman)-- but he must become a hero who learns to place JUSTICE over VENGEANCE. THAT becomes his challenge throughout THIS story.
And, in the fight with RAS, BRUCE FAILS! Instead of CAPTURING RAS and bringing him to JUSTICE, he LETS RAS DIE! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! That is the choice that would have made Thomas Wayne ASHAMED of his son! And the fact that Batman RATIONALIZES that he's in the right makes it WORSE! "I'm not killing you, I'm letting you die." UGH! Batman DOESN'T rationalize. Batman is about absolutes-- he does NOT weasel his way out of hard choices WITH SEMANTICS!
If Batman had SAVED his worst enemy and brought him to justice-- AND been the one to throw the switch that saved Gotham-- I would EASILY call BATMAN BEGINS one of the BEST super hero movies of all time-- maybe even better than MY favorite, SPIDER-MAN 2.
But those TWO beats so put the lie to the ENTIRE character: the hero he's SUPPOSED to be (the guy who ACTUALLY saves the city) and the hero he CHOOSES to be (someone who puts justice ABOVE vengeance), that-- in my mind-- make it one of the WORST.