Robin and I celebrated our 14th anniversary (and my racquetball gold medal) on Thursday with a night at the movies. She hadn’t seen Revenge of the Sith yet, so that was one possibility. Also, Batman Begins had just come out recently and she was interested in that also.

I was more inclined to see something new, so we let the reviews be the tiebreaker. Batman Begins was getting some very good press, so we decided to see it. It was an excellent choice. Batman Begins is possibly the best superhero movie ever made.

Batman Begins

Rating: 5/5

I am going to assert that Batman Begins is the best superhero movie ever made. I will admit that I haven’t seen all the movies based on comic book superheroes, so you can take my hyperbole with a grain of salt if you like. I have, however, seen a lot of them, including most of the ones that got good buzz and critical reviews, and Batman Begins overshadows all but the best. I’d put both Spiderman movies and The Matrix at least close to it, but there was something about Batman Begins that drove it to the top of the list for me.

Christopher Nolan, of Memento fame, directed this darker, more complex Batman movie. His customary tricks with continuity and flashbacks are showcased here, particularly early on where he deftly knits together threads from Bruce Wayne’s childhood, college years and mid-20’s to quickly impress the formation of his personality and character on the audience before progressing to the creation of the persona of Batman.

A stellar cast gives this movie a lot of acting depth. Michael Caine as Alfred, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Rutger Hauer and Gary Oldman are just a sampling of the excellent character actors that grace this film. Strong screenwriting works with these actors’ talents to give them ample opportunity to shine and animate their characters with a strong sense of humanity and reality.

Christian Bale, a relative unknown compared to many of these veteran actors, makes an excellent Batman. He portrays Bruce Wayne as tormented, lonely, driven and implacable, but never loses the character’s compassion and connection to humanity that makes him a superhero instead of just a costumed vigilante or terrorist. This Batman is built much more on the Frank Miller model as seen in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns than any other of the cinematic Batmen over the years. Katie Holmes plays his semi-love interest Rachel Dawes, and the two invest this relationship with the bittersweet futility that will be familiar to superhero comic aficionados.

Batman Begins is unique among the recent Batman movies in that the primary focus of the movie is on Batman himself. Although there certainly are an array of villians both prosaic and theatrical, Nolan never lets them become overly ridiculous or allows them to steal the focus off of Bruce Wayne for very long. This is the film’s greatest triumph: by keeping the focus on the complex, deep motivations of Batman, we get a movie that can entertain while still staying close to believability. Aside from a couple of pieces of technology in the movie that were transparent plot devices, almost everything in Batman Begins seems like it could actually take place in the real world, if you squint just a little.

Serious Batman fans may be a bit disturbed by some of the modifications made to the canonical Batman origin story. Although the major details are still there, the screenwriters have taken some liberties that are bound to irritate some. For the most part, I felt that the changes improved the story and strengthened the portrayal of the fundamental qualities of Batman — his indomitable force of will, and his total committment to protecting the common man from the criminals that would prey on him. Contrasting Batman’s moral sense to that of Ra’s al-Ghul and the Shadow League (in several ways throughout the movie) was a masterstroke and probably did more to define the essence of Batman than anything else that happens in the movie.

When you put everything together, Batman Begins has it all. Great acting, great writing, strong effects and cinematography, and the powerful, archetypal figure of Batman to anchor it. If you like superheroes or action movies at all, I recommend this movie without reservation. Even if you don’t, Batman Begins may win you over anyway.

OK, it’s not original; the phrase has appeared in many places across the web. You can also buy “Sith Happens” gear at various places if, for some reason, you have the desire. And I even liked the movie — a lot — so it’s not even an appropriate tag for this review. But still, it’s a sophomoric pop-culture word game reference and I have a weakness for them.

Revenge of the Sith

Rating: 3.5/5

I saw Revenge of the Sith on Thursday, and I must say that I was impressed. It doesn’t have the same magic or sense of discovery that A New Hope had, nor the powerful revelations about Luke and Darth Vader that The Empire Strikes Back centered on. What it did have was solid acting from the cast as a whole, stronger writing than I was expecting, a tragic plot for which I had little trouble suspending disbelief, and outstanding cinematography and effects.

After the sub-mediocre The Phantom Menace and the somewhat better Attack of the Clones, I was resigned to more wooden performances from Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader), Natalie Portman (Padme Amidala), and, inexplicably, Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu). Christensen did a much better job of portraying a conflicted young Jedi wrestling with the proper role of his own feelings and desires as he slowly succumbs to the temptations of the Dark Side. Portman, once again, has her considerable talents underused. She gets some better scenes in this movie, and when she is allowed to act like a full human being you can see some of her true talent shining through, but her character is no Leia from the original trilogy. Jackson is an outstanding actor, and if he had to play a Jedi, playing ass-kicker Mace Windu was probably the right choice, but he wears the serenity of a Jedi Master very uncomfortably. He would have made an outstanding Sith.

The true standouts are Ewan MacGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi) and Ian McDiarmid (Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious). I can’t say enough good things about Ewan MacGregor’s performance in this movie. Perhaps the best praise I can give him is that, to me, he made the transition from the young Obi-Wan of the prequel trilogy to the older Obi-Wan of the original trilogy seamless. The nuances of character that the great Sir Alec Guinness imparted to Obi-Wan are clearly visible in MacGregor’s younger version.

Ian McDiarmid gives a great performance as Chancellor Palpatine, the “friendly face” of Sith Lord Darth Sidious. Of course, he gets to chew the scenery on a regular basis, but he does a good job of displaying just enough self control and false compassion to be believable as an avuncular mentor for Anakin, while letting just enough smug malice leak out around the edges to make you squirm in your seat as his seeds of evil take root and start to sprout.

I’ve heard that Lucas retained Tom Stoppard to punch up the dialogue a little. I could certainly believe it. While it’s still not Shakespeare, we were not treated to any cringe-worthy lines like “I love you because you’re not like sand.” The love scenes still seemed a bit forced (no pun intended), but with the twin swords of war and Anakin’s dire visions hanging overhead, there was a sense of urgency and desperation to Anakin and Padme’s time together that added some much-needed dramatic tension. Also, Lucas does have the tendency to hit you over the head with his metaphors and morals like he was trying to convince you through blunt force trauma. I thought a bit more subtlety and deftness would have helped the scene where the Chancellor assumed the mantle of Emperor. Lucas could have shown, rather than told, for much greater effect.

The heart of the movie, of course, is Anakin’s descent to the Dark Side. Here Lucas really did it right, showing that he’s aware of how power corrupts, and how rationalizations and propaganda can so easily twist positive motives to evil. Anakin’s road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Anakin is fundamentally a good man as the movie starts. He loves his wife, respects his Jedi master Obi-Wan and the rest of the Jedi Council, wants to serve and be useful to the Republic and its Chancellor, Palpatine. Unfortunately, he has great power but has not yet mastered Jedi detachment, so that his emotions and the trappings of power such as titles, respect, and glory still have a pull on him. Palpatine systematically finds, explores, and turns each positive motivation Anakin has back on itself before pinching it off completely, encouraging him to justify his personal desires by either rationalizing them as serving the greater good, or telling himself that he deserves them.

Anakin’s corruption is slow, gradual, and eminently believable. By the time he joins the Sith and takes the name Darth Vader, you can almost hear him thinking, “how the hell did this all go so wrong?” Sidious keeps stringing him along farther and farther until, finally, he’s betrayed or destroyed everything he originally held dear. Mutilated and scorched along a river of lava on a lifeless, volcanic planet on the outer rim of the galaxy, he’d seem to have hit bottom. But, as we eventually find out, the Dark Side doesn’t really have a bottom, and Darth Vader continues to fall for a long, long time.

From a visual perspective, the movie is exceptional. The action scenes are well-staged and well-choreographed, and the many quick panoramas of faraway planets we get to see during the course of the war are stunningly original and believably alien. Padme’s Senatorial quarters, where she and Anakin spend considerable time, believably portray an island of calm in the midst of the political and military chaos of the rest of the galaxy. It’s easy to see that Anakin feels at home and comfortable there with Padme. The soundtrack is generally good, although the use of mood music was sometimes obtrusive and jarring.

Overall, I would rate Revenge of the Sith easily better than the first two prequels, and on a par or slightly superior to Return of the Jedi. It falls quite a bit short of the high bar set by A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back.

I haven’t seen Episode III yet, although I hope to this week sometime. In the meantime, you ought to check out this link to Adam Bertocci’s Star Wars parody site. It’s hilarious! “The Chopped-Off Hands of Star Wars” is really good, but my personal favorite is “Run Leia Run”, a parody of “Run Lola Run”, the bizarre German film of the late ’90s.