Mission #98 - Batman Begins

Mission #98 - Watch a Movie (50pts)

My ticket from Batman Begins, which I saw while at home with the family.

I went to see Batman Begins with Mom and Dad on Saturday afternoon. There is no better way to see a movie in the theatres than seeing it with the folks, especially if they pay for the ticket, popcorn AND pop. Woo!

As far as the movie goes... I'll be honest, I'd heard it was awesome but I wasn't totally sure if it was going to be, in my opinion. I knew Christian Bale was in it (points right there.)... and I think I had heard that Cillian Murphy was in it as well (even more points). I hadn't seen any of the Batman sequels since.. Batman Forever I think. (Looking back, I'd seen Batman, Batman Returns, and Batman Forever. Anyway though, Christian Bale has not been in too many notable movies (I'd seen him in a few, like American Psycho and Little Women... wow, that was quite the span of genres.)... I was a little leary of him being in such a huge role.

I was very pleasantly surprised by Bale's performance... as Bruce Wayne. As Batman himself... it wasn't quite right, looking into his dark brown eyes with the.. bat helmet? on it just felt wrong. Maybe that was due to the fact that I want to say Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer had blue eyes? I don't remember. But something felt wrong. The story was very good, although I had a lot of issues with the main issue of the movie (I won't do any spoilers.. but when you see it, you'll probably question it too). Nonetheless, the story was good, and the casting director did a very good job of picking actors for the roles. There were quite a few very good actors in this movie, including Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson and Gary Oldham (in fact I didn't even RECOGNIZE him as Gary Oldham). I'm not going to say the same for Katie Holmes, because in fact, she is NOT a good actress. But back to picking some not as well known actors... the choices of Christian Bale and Cillian Murphy were quite unexpected. It was actually kind of refreshing to see some actors not normally chosen for such parts. Example, I would have NEVER chosen Cillian Murphy, mainly because I had never heard of him prior to seeing 28 Days Later last summer. I think he was wonderful in the role of Dr. Jonathan Crane though. Ironically though, Murphy actually tried for the part of Batman, but the casting crew felt he'd be better suited for Dr. Crane.

Anyway though I AM saying that anyone who hasn't seen this movie yet should do so. It was way better than any of the previous Batman franchise movies. I'd say its also one of my more favorite movies of the summer (granted the only ones I've seen this summer were SWep3: Revenge of the Sith, Madagascar and this one... I'd say it'd go Batman, Madagascar then Revenge of the Sith for my order of preference this summer.).

50 pts for seeing a movie I had never seen
100 pts for seeing it at a theatre
150 pts total