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| Batman Begins [Blu-ray] | ![Batman Begins [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51nZYyCAoIL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Christopher Nolan
Actors: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Ken Watanabe, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes
Studio: Warner Bros.
Category: DVD
List Price: $28.99
Buy New: $15.39
You Save: $13.60 (47%)
New (39) Used (11) from $15.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  1245 reviews
Sales Rank: 45
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: Blu-ray
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 140
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 5.3 x 0.5
MPN: WARBR21452
UPC: 085391115212
EAN: 0085391115212
ASIN: B000PC6A3E
Theatrical Release Date: 2005
Release Date: July 8, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new and factory sealed. In stock and ships today!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Knight of Justice, Night of Fear, Return of the Legend! October 20, 2005
19 out of 22 found this review helpful
Not as Cartoonish as past batman movies, void of any influence from the old TV Series starring Adam West, What started out as a comic book character so long ago...has returned with a true essence of what Batman, and Bruce Wayne, are really all about.
HARDWARE AND BACKDROP: The gadgets and hi-tech toys in this movie make us think that things have changed...but really they haven't. In the old series, the Batmobile looked futuristic, and given the modern day presence the movie is in, The costume, hardware, and Batmobile are all not of some bizarre future, but of advanced science. Gotham is more than ever before brought to life on the big screen. Instead of a few dark alleys, we are introduced to the actual dark, subculture of the underground part of the city, where fear reigns supreme.
FOREGROUND: Excellent part's of the story that are like a jigsaw puzzle, and piece together a solid, grandiose base that return our old favorites with far more depth. Wayne Manor, The Wayne Family Empire, Arkham Asylum, and the Batcave come through this incredibly woven script with sincerety, strength, and sound resolution.
STRUCTURE: Batman, aka the "Dark Knight" was known to the world as an avenger of sorts againt criminals, driven by the brutal murder of his parents by a robber outside a theater all those years ago. Batman Begins applies the filler for the gap that was how he learned how to fight with something besides sheer will. The mountain top martial arts training center with the League of Shadows was superb, and fit the story well. Bruce Wayne trains here not just to learn how to fight, but also how to conquer fear. His training is an attempt that one day he will be used as the leader of a vehicle that will rid Gotham of crime once and for all. However, more happens within this subplot, for Batman is not on the side of vengeance or justice, but the balance between.
CAST AND CHARACTERS: Christian Bale will make you quickly forget anyone else that has ever played the role. Beyond the physique, his voice and calm stare bring to life Bob Kane's creation from the pages of the comic all over again. Liam Neeson and Katie Holmes are also excellent in their roles.
VILLIAN: Never before has a villian brought from the comic book to the big screen been so simplistic, yet so complex while attaining true evil. You will witness this when you encounter THE SCARECROW!
Qoute from the movie: "Crime, Despair, this is not how man was supposed to live...the league of shadows has been a check against human corruption for thousands of years. We sacked Rome...loaded trade ships with plague rats...and burned London to the ground. Every time a civilization reaches the pinnacle of it's decadence, we return to restore the balance."
Batman Begins is more than a comic book movie adaption, more than just a show. It's in EPIC TALE about justice, vengeance, and the balance that lies with the two between good and evil.
 The most overrated film next to The Shawshank Redemption November 9, 2005
18 out of 80 found this review helpful
My God the pain! Let's point out numerous flaws/stupid stuff in the movie:
1. Why are there present interludes when we are watching the past? Why won't Nolan just show the kid Bruce and then the adult Bruce? It's pointless the way he does it. Oh wait I know why; he's a bad film maker. Sad that people mistake this for "good film making."
2. The Scarecrow has about 2 seconds, and Ra's Ahl Ghul is so plain and boring. Yeah, this is a BATMAN movie, but come on, what is Batman without his criminals and bad guys? Some dork in a suit who whines and whines and whines...
3. And whines... and whines. Batman is a pansy in this movie. "Oh, I fell down a well and some bats scared me. Mommy, help me! I might start wetting the bed again!" Too much gibberish about "fear" too. It's like who cares?
4. No imagination. None. What's the scariest thing Nolan came up with with Scarecrow's gas? FIRE EYES! Bow down to FIRE EYES! Wet your pants in FEAR with FIRE EYES! Or worms... or a skull... I mean instead of putting something that actually scares people (a spider? a scary clown? snakes? etc. etc.) he puts FIRE EYES. All shake and tremble to FIRE EYES! Just watch as Batman glides and what scares the people? FIRE EYES. The movie is also "realistic" because Nolan can't but IMAGINATION and FANTASY into a FANTASY character. Ya know, making a FANTASY movie about BATMAN is out of the question!
5. The fight scenes... are edited so badly it's crazy! People say this is from the victim's POV... well why was the fight scenes like that when Bats fought Ra's or when Bruce fought the Chinese people in the beginning? Why is Nolan treating ME like a victim (actually, after watching this "movie" I feel like a victim)? The argument makes no sense. The reason Nolan shot them that way? He sucks.
6. How he got his gadgets... watching these sequences is about as entertaining as watching someone buying groceries at the grocery store - except here you here some idiot keep on making excuses and asking stupid questions like "Does it come in black?" But then again, this is genius film making! What is more genuis than watching people order stuff from their own company? Best Screenplay/Director/Picture award coming this way!
7. The collateral damage. So Batman who wants to be silent and a dark knight costs about a billion or 2 dollars in property damages, risks cops lives and bystanders. And for what? KATIE HOLMES (who is horrible). That's right. Obviously she is worth more than a dozen cops and property.
8. Closer to the comics? Nope. Not at all. People say "Well, the Joker didn't kill Batman's parents!" Well, Ra's Ahl Ghul did not train Bruce! John Crane is a teacher! Rachel Dawes does not exist in the comics! If anything, Burton's version is closer, even Bob Kane has admitted that's how he always invisioned Batman.
9. The music is uninspired, with too much synthesizer and drums. Nothing special. No memerable theme like Elfman's score. Fits the movie though; dull, uninteresting, uninspired and boring.
10. Doesn't need to be a Batman film. Replace this with Jerry Orbach and change a few characters names and BAM you have a totally different movie. Hell, you can even keep Ra's and Scarecrow and have a different movie; it's just too realistic. It's like a martial arts episode followed by Law and Order. It just isn't that great.
The good things about the film:
- It ends
- It can be used in a suicide note
- It makes me want to watch Keaton's Batman to feel better
- It gave me a warning to watch it again or its sequel
Flight of the Winged Rat November 3, 2005
17 out of 66 found this review helpful
"Batman Begins" is a great example of what happens when good guys (Chris Nolan, Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman) go bad. And I don't mean dudding themselves up in a batcape and fighting crime: I mean turning out a superhyped, yawn-inducing stinker like "Batman Begins".
So with that: 10 Reasons why the once-talented Chris Nolan's hopelessly tedious, depression/sleep-inducing greenish-tinted floater stinks up the joint:
1)It's dull. Achingly so. It goes on and on, and just when you think it's about to exhaust itself and die---it goes on and on.
2) It's dull, did I mention that? How can you make a story about a psychopath vigilante who duds himself up in a flouncy cape and tights dull? I dunno, but Nolan did it.
3) It's Dark. *Really* Dark.
By that I mean it's underlit: it's hard to see anything, because Nolan doesn't know how to light his sequences.
4) The action sequences bite, hard. Why? Because the camera is shoved up against the Batman's left nostril: every fight sequence is close-cut, cropped, psycho-edited, and so tightly shot that you can't see who's BAMFING and BAPPING and THWAPPING who. So maybe it's best that it's so dark it's impossible to see what's happening because---well, nothing really is.
5) The "Batmobile" (basically a huge, hideous, mutant farm tractor spray-painted black) drives around on the rooftops of Gotham. Yes, really.
When I think Dark, Brooding, Vigilante Justice, I think the original, sleek, armored-up Batmobile of the Burton masterpiece. I do *not* think John Deere lower-40 special, tooling around amongst the chimney-pots of Gotham City.
6)Batman (Christian Bale, who tries, dammit, he really tries) is played as psychotic yuppie (a la American Psycho), or a fluty voiced drag-queen. C'mon, listen to the Voice: tell me, if you were a Gotham criminal, you wouldn't die giggling.
6)Batman doesn't loom, or hulk, or menace: he squats.
Not crouches, squats.
This is meant to suggest coiled rage: it suggests, instead, a man in the final, lethal stages of terminal, chronic constipation.
7)Qui-Gon Jin (Liam Neeson) is in this movie, playing Qui-Gon Jin channeling Oprah by way of Dr. Phil. Oh, and Ra's Al-Ghul, evidently, is Arabic for "I wear cheesy facial hair".
8) The chief villain, Potato Sack, wears a potato-sack over his head. No, honestly, a potato-sack. This is meant to just TERRIFY you, man, scare you senseless.
Why does he wear a potato sack over his head? My theory: so he doesn't have to watch "Batman Begins" like you, chump. Oh, and he sprays his victims with some kind of hallucinogenic spray. I actually *envied* the Scarecrow's victims: at least they experienced an emotion other than sleep, apathy, boredom, or raw contempt, all of which this movie induces in spades.
9) Katie Holmes and her hideously scary hands. Some advice, Katie: next time spend a little of the money you're blowing in the Scientology bunker having your engrams removed---on acting lessons.
10) "Batman Begins" actually makes Gary Oldman (the once-and-future Commissioner Gordon) look like a silly, incompetent, middle-aged dufus---oddly enough, the target demographic for this silly, incomptent, middle-aged movie. How is it possible to squander the talent of the incomparable Gary Oldman? How is it possible to make a Batman movie into an incomprehensible, incoherent, mind-numbing snorefest that features a John Deere tractor tooling about on somebody's rooftop? I dunno, but Nolan does it.
Things I'd rather do than see "Batman Begins" ever again:
1) Drive red-hot pokers into my eyes.
2) Stab myself in the face with a rusty knife.
3) Sever my right leg and surgically re-attach it to my a**.
4) Take a bath in a tub full of acid.
5) Read the Encyclopedia Britannica cover-to-cover in a single sitting, in Braille.
6) Watch "Gigli" again.
Let the order go forth: all copies of the negative to "Batman Begins" should be burned, and the ashes sealed in an airtight container and shot into the Sun. Well, except one copy: round up all fans of this rancid, stinking turd, surgically remove their eyelids, and force them to watch this abomination over and over---forever.
P.S.: If you enjoyed "Batman Begins", check out "Catwoman" and "Doom". You'll dig 'em.
JSG
 Bats frighten me. It's time my enemies share my dread. November 8, 2005
17 out of 23 found this review helpful
After four tries it seems they finally came up with a Batman to remember. Christian Bale not only cuts a fine figure but gives the role the gravity it deserves, providing the much needed raison d'etre for the Dark Knight. Unfortunately, the plot was a bit far-fetched and not very well resolved. Christopher Nolan put together an excellent supporting cast with Michael Caine giving Alfred a nice comic touch and Gary Oldman as a young Detective Gordon. But, it is the extra touches which really make this movie, like Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, who helps Batman come up with the armor and gadgets he needs to take on the underworld of Gotham. I also thought Cillian Murphy did a great job as Dr. Jonathon Crane, the genesis for the Joker. However, I wasn't particularly smitten by Katie Holmes and Mark Boone Junior turned Flass into a joke, whereas he was a much darker and more sinister character in Frank Miller's Batman: Year One. It will be interesting to see where they take Batman from here.
WARNING! Get the TWO DVD version instead! October 23, 2005
16 out of 45 found this review helpful
I am a victim of this edition. I get the Batman DVD and figure it odd that there are absolutely no bonus features at all on it. So I check online to see why, and I find out they have a 2 DVD version that has bonus features, but for some reason, some stores are selling a single DVD set.
Too late for me, I opened the set.
I hope I can save others from getting caught in this terrible trick by the movie company to get people to buy this DVD, then find out there is another set with bonus features in hopes they buy the second set too and double their profits.
The greed lately from these movie companies is unbelievable.
Yet when they are FILMING the movies, you should see how many millions of dollars they waste and throw away every single day on things they don't have to, and how many hours they will take to shoot a segment that will only be on screen for 5 seconds, and many times not at all as it ends up being cut out of the movie anyway.
But when it comes to the consumer, they want to get every single penny they can from them.
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