Stuff by Steve

After two (some would say three) failed attempts at living up to the great stuff produced in the Michael Keaton/Jack Nicholson outing of Batman, Warner Bros. decided to clean the slate and start from the beginning. Alleged not to be a prequel but a “new beginning to a new franchise,” Batman Begins started things off with Bruce Wayne before he was the Caped Crusader. Deftly portrayed by Christian Bale, Wayne was a brooding, pensive, tormented orphan-heir to a fortune and a whole lot of bad memories. After coming to his senses after a trip down self-loathing lane, he decided to use his wealth to combat the evil that had befallen his hometown of Gotham City. The story explored his decision to become Batman, as well as the consequences of the decision and the unresolved internal struggles that drove the decision in the first place. This movie went far deeper than many before it, even more so than Spider-Man 2 (which was also great), and much more effectively. It was a near-perfect blend of action and drama, all this being portrayed in a fairly believable manner. Batman was not a hero by virtue of supernatural power - no toxic waste accident here. Instead he was an ordinary man who wanted to do extraordinary things, giving him a certain empathy that really could not be achieved with a more fantastic portrayal. In this vein, the villains were also plausibly portrayed, as well as Gotham City, although the entire movie still kept a sense of wonder and excitement throughout. In fact, despite not being superhuman, one still was overcome with the desire to “be” Batman, doling out justice on the general evil public as necessary. I was pleasantly surprised by Bale, who seemed as appropriate a Bruce Wayne AND Batman as anybody. The playboy side of Wayne seemed to be a bit too tame, however, but you can’t attribute this to Bale’s acting. I also especially liked the comparison of Wayne’s journey through conquering his fear of bats (and thus adopting the animal as his symbol because of its fearful effect) with that of the villain employing fear as a weapon. I felt that the villain element wasn’t focused enough (there were too many), but still held enough intrigue not to be disappointing. Overall, the movie was filled with subtle, wonderful touches that made it a gem. If you see one superhero movie in your lifetime, this one should probably be it.

Besides mediocre monster movies and disaster flicks, I’m also a sucker for a good sci-fi conspiracy film. If it involves breaking out of some genetically engineered stereotype or throwing off the shackles of an oppressive controlling force in a radical defiance of “the system,” even better (I don’t know why that topic consumes me so). “The Island” was a nearly-great example of such a film. With yet another stellar performance by Ewan McGregor and as tight directing as you could get from Michael Bay, we were brought through the story of clones who did not know that they are clones and lived out their lives confined to a “contamination-free” complex while waiting to be shipped off to a mysterious island in order to repopulate the earth after the last great disaster. Or so they thought. I won’t give away too much, but of course some of the clones discovered their true nature and decided that they didn’t want to be lied to anymore. You fill in the blanks. The story was interesting and intriguing, providing an adequate blend of action and suspense. The issue of cloning, specifically, movie cloning where mature humans are created fully developed and aware in a short time period, was dealt with in a vaguely plausible manner (although I have a theory that to have the intellect and character of a 15-year-old, you must actually live 15 years, not three). The concept itself, as I said earlier, held the most appeal, but this also ended up being the films biggest flaw. Did the clones have souls? Where did the non-manufactured memories come from? The film introduced, but did not explore very deeply, the ideas of identity, predestination, morality, and humanity, to name a few. The setting was crying out for it, even begging, but the philosophy was given a surface treatment in favour of the car chases. Still, they were well done chase scenes, and the movie was just interesting enough that it held my attention the entire time. At the very least, it provided for an engaging post-theater experience.