Batman Begins (2005) at 15.

[The Natural]

Through the USA release date yesterday and by UK’s tomorrow, Batman Begins is fifteen.The Batman film franchise was in a real bad place from where it was through Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992) to what it became in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever (1995) and especially Batman and Robin (1997). Despite attempts to resurrect Batman on the big screen, it would take eight years till it happened and it was fittingly called Batman Begins (2005).

Batman Begins directed by Christopher Nolan shows how Bruce Wayne becomes Batman witnessing the murder of his parents as a young child (I got choked up at that depiction in Batman Begins), his training around the world, how he acquires the key Batman components: the Batsuit, Tumbler etc and becomes a symbol to all those in Gotham City as Batman. My favourite scenes are Batman’s escape from Arkham Asylum, the Tumbler chased by GCPD that follows and my favourite scene in the entire Dark Knight Trilogy as Batman and now Lieutenant Gordon talk about escalation while Gordon shows Batman a clue left at an armed robbery...a Joker card.

As a hardcore Batman devotee, I love this movie. The story telling Bruce Wayne’s origin to becoming Batman, the performances particularly Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Gary Oldman’s Sgt. James Gordon, Liam Neeson’s Ducard/Ra’s al Ghul and Cillian Murphy’s Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow. The music by James Newton Howard/Hans Zimmer, the Batsuit and Tumbler, Christopher Nolan’s direction and how the film brought Batman back up from deep depths. To this day, it’s still the best superhero origin movie but it’s more than that. It’s a top three comic book movie ever made with Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) in second place and on top spot ever since it came out, The Dark Knight (2008).