Batman Begins

Poor Spider-Man. It just lost its crown as best comic book movie ever.

The problem with comic book movies is their tendency to rely on the spectacle at the expense of all the things that make a great movie. Slowly, Hollywood types are learning that the little things like story, character, and dialogue are as important as flashy whiz-bangs.

X-Men, for all its fun, is not a very good movie. The backstories are interesting but there’s too much going on: too many characters, too many powers, too many whizzy things. The Hulk and Daredevil tried the opposite tack: focus on the story of one hero. Their problem was that those heroes’ stories are damned boring. Batman Begins manages to combine whiz-bang energy with compelling characters, good dialogue and an excellent story. It doesn’t hurt that they got some real actors to flesh the thing out and make it believable.

My only complaint is the glaring stupidity of the e-ville plot against Gotham. Am I wrong in thinking that microwaves are a focused line of sight, rather than area-effect, weapon? If that bloody thing had worked the way indicated I would imagine it was a nigh omni-directional beam of immense energy and certainly would have cooked anyone near it – not to mention melt the train – long before causing any serious harm.

But who am I to nit pick? I suppose it’s no less believeable than a scientist manipulating a small sun with attached mechanical arms in a New York City loft or or computers being intelligent and reliable enough to not only enslave the entire human race but create an infinitely layered programmatic construct to keep us all pliable.

I think, in the future, less science is warranted. Suspension of disbelief will cover beloved childhood heroes and villains but fiddling with modern realities doesn’t cut the mustard.