I like Batman a lot, but this one not too much. I’m not really fond of this particular personification of him, and I do not approve of their choice for Rachel’s actress.
The rest of the cast was good, though.
The story:
As a child, while playing with his friend Rachel, Bruce fell down a well, sort of, very dry, and there were lots of bats that scared him. it’s his nightmare.
Now adult, he wakes up in a prisoners camp where all the others are Asians, both guards and prisoners, it seemed to me. He has no problem defeating anyone who fights him, wanting to kill him. He’s put on solitary where he’s approached by Ducard, speaking for Ra’s Al Ghul, a man greatly feared by the criminal underground scene.
“A man who can offer you a path”. Ducard says that Bruce is there by choice, because he’s lost, and offers “the path of the man who shares his hatred of evil and wishes to serve true justice. The path of the League of Shadows”. Ducard says “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, Mr Wayne”.
As Ducard said, the next day he’s let go, and he does what he was told to do, he picks a blue flower and takes it up a mountain. Alone, while it’s snowing, and I never saw him eat anything… still, he reaches some sort of temple. There’s people there and Ducard too. Bruce says “I seek the means to fight injustice, to turn fear against those who prey on the fearful”.
Ducard starts beating him up as training even though Bruce is barely standing.
Bruce fights back, but not much.
What he fears is bats. Dad saved him from the fall and healed him, and he had nightmares about the bats. The Waynes were rich and very involved in Gotham. At the opera, Bruce was scared by the performers, reminded of bats, so they got out and there was nobody around, it was night, and they were robbed and both parents were shot dead.
As a college student, Bruce had Alfred taking care of him and the manor. The murderer was caught right away when Bruce was a child, and he’s been to prison, but now Rachel’s boss wants to free him, this Mr Chill, so he’ll testify against Carmine Falcone who was in prison with him. Rachel goes with him to the trial, and Chill is let out. Bruce says nothing, but he wants to kill him. Chill is killed by someone else first, though. Rachel talks to him about vengeance versus justice.
Bruce faces Falcone to show him he’s not afraid, but then the man sort of threatens Rachel and Alfred. Bruce runs away, and steals to eat.
Now the training goes on and on, both physical, like Chinese-style, and emotional, to face his fears.
At the end of it, he should kill the criminal, the murderer they had there prisoner, the first step before leading those men into destroying Gotham.
Bruce says that he’s no executioner, and instead he fights those that trained him and burns down the place. Of course by doing so it’s very probably that everybody in there died, prisoner and fighters, but at least it wasn’t in cold blood.
He saves Ducard and leaves him at a village, then he goes back to Gotham and Alfred. He wants to become a symbol. Bruce has been declared dead after disappearing for seven years, and in his will he left it all to Alfred. Well… one wonders why the hell did they do that, if an adult man decide to leave home and go travelling without informing anyone, he can do it. Sure, it was strange that he didn’t tell Alfred anything, but still, to declare him dead and dispose of his things just like that, it seems a bit much, doesn’t it? Luckily he made a will, so at least everything is where it was, taken care by Alfred.
Mr Crane keeps declaring that assassins are insane so they don’t go to prison but to his institute instead. Rachel works for the DA. Crane does work with Falcone, but does not work for him, he works for someone even Falcone is scared about.
Mr Earle is leading his company, and Bruce asks for a job, working with scientist Fox, who is some sort of Q, and Bruce intends to use all the stuff he invented.
Bruce and Alfred build his ‘cave’, literally in the bats cave, since he’s no more afraid of them. Or well, he is in a way, but he doesn’t have panic attacks anymore.
He works together with Alfred, who helps a lot.
Barman delivers Falcone and his men to the police, with lots of evidence. He saves Rachel and warns her that Falcone wanted her dead.
Someone stole and activated a big weapon on a Wayne ship. Following Alfred’s advice, Bruce starts being seen with women and spending money. He can’t tell Rachel the truth.
Falcone is now in Crane’s institute, but is not let out. Crane uses some powder that has people hallucinating and panic in fear, and he uses it against Batman too.
He needs to call Alfred, who called Lucius Fox for help. Rachel’s boss is killed.
It’s Bruce’s birthday, but he leaves to save Rachel. She went to Crane’s asylum and is given the drugs to make her more than insane, the dose was too high.
Earle fires Fox. Crane tells Batman that he works for Ra’s Al Ghul.
Batman takes Rachel away, talk to Gordon, drives her away jumping on roofs. At the bat cave, he gives her the antidote, then he goes back to his birthday party because Alfred insisted he pretends to have a normal life.
Alfred takes Rachel home. The toxin is put into the city water and that stolen Wayne’s weapon would turn it aerial to poison the city.
At the party, Bruce meets Ducard, and an unknown man who plays Ra’s Al Ghul, but actually Ducard is the real Ra’s Al Ghul, so now there’s someone who knows who he is and what he does.
To get rid of all those people at the party, Bruce plays the drunk card to send everyone away so he’s left alone with Ra’s and his men. He wants to destroy the city because corrupt beyond safety, says his Order did things for thousands of years: “we sacked Rome, loaded trade ships with plague rats, burned London to the ground. Every time a civilization reaches the pinnacle of its decadence, we return to restore the balance”.
They free the criminals at the Arkham Asylum and burn Bruce’s house. With him in it, but Alfred braves the fire to find him, and says “what is the point of all those push-ups if you can’t even lift a bloody log?” :lol:
Ra’s released the toxin… so everyone sees monsters, but not Gordon and Rachel who have the antidote. Batman saves her and tells her who he is.
And yet it’s not just that, there’s also some stuff about that secret weapon being brought to the Wayne tower, to spread it to the whole city, and not just those who were around.
Batman doesn’t kill Ra’s but lets him crash with the falling train.
The Wayne company recently went public and Bruce secretly bought most of the shares, so he’s now the owner and can fire Earle, and give his job to Fox.
Rachel makes a move on Bruce, they kiss but just once because he can’t publicly be the man he really is. He will build his house again, and work with Gordon who is no more a sergeant now but a lieutenant - I didn’t think it was possible, I thought sergeant was the highest lower rank, and lieutenant the lowest high rank, not compatible.
Gordon tells him many escaped criminals have not been found yet, and one is signing his crimes with the Joker playing card…
Bruce - Christian Bale
Ducard - Liam Neeson
Alfred - Michael Caine
Gordon - Gary Oldman
Rachel - Katie Holmes
Dr Crane - Cillian Murphy
Falcone - Tom Wilkinson
Earle - Rutger Hauer
Ra’s Al Ghul - Ken Watanabe
Lucius Fox - Morgan Freeman
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