The Weekly Stuff #379 – Batman on Film Part 8: BATMAN BEGINS (2005) with Christian Bale

Our BATMAN ON FILM series starts catching up to the modern age of superhero films this week with Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, the 2005 franchise reboot that marked a new degree of seriousness – not just in theme and tone, but also in production value, casting, and direction – for films about the Caped Crusader, and set the stage for Batman’s biggest moments of mainstream global popularity in the years to come. The movie was undoubtedly a refreshing, impressive change of pace at the time, but 16 years later, how does it hold up? Nolan asks us to take Batman seriously, not just as a character, but for the first time on film, in how he relates to something resembling the real world. That means this film’s ideas are worth taking seriously, and not all of them sit right with us today, nor do some of the structural and plotting choices that have always felt awkward. It’s an impressive movie in many ways, but does it really hold together as a good one? All this and more makes for another great Bat-Podcast. 

TIME CHART:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:07:43

Batman Begins: 0:07:43 – 1:57:46

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