Batman Begins: Dark Cut

Definitely my preferred version of Batman Begins.

Technical quality – 10/10 – Great!

Editing – 10/10 – Sometimes I forgot I was watching a FanEdit, which is, in this case a good thing. I just got into the story and didn’t notice any cuts that took me out of it.

Presentation – 10/10 – No problems here.

Entertainment – 9/10 – I loved the redone scene of Chill’s shooting, the added dialogue, the changes to Katie Holmes’ voice, the trimming of unnecessary humor, the little blond kid being gone, and the changes to the Tumbler chase. Basically, I liked all of your cuts except for one: Gordon not driving the Tumbler. One thing I loved about Batman Begins is the fact that Gordon’s isn’t utterly useless like in the 90′s series. I liked how he was involved in the climax. Now it’s just a GPS and isn’t explained terribly well. I was also hoping you’d keep the “I’ve got to get me one of those” line. So I’m taking one star off the entertainment factor.

Overall – 9/10

People are fanatical about a lot of things. Star Trek, Star Wars, James Bond, etc. etc. These are people who have watched these movies,read these books, and lived and breathed this stuff for as long as they care to remember. They know about as much about a subject as there is to be known, it’s a legitimate passion for them. Without trying to sound like I have that much of an ego, I consider myself one of these fanatics when it comes to Batman. I practically taught myself to read with the comics. And so that’s the baggage I took in with me when I went to watch Batman Begins for the first time, and now again when turning on this edit of the film.

I walked out of the theater after my first viewing of Batman Begins very, very happy as a fan of the character. IT was the first time the version of the character that I loved most had really been successfully realized on screen, for the most part, in my opinion. However. That doesn’t mean it didn’t have it’s flaws. It does. So when starting this up I was eager to see what JMB would do with the film. And in my opinion he took the ball and ran with it.

First and foremost, the technical aspects of this edit are stellar. The video looked identical to the quality of my DVD, and the sound was perfect as well. The only issues I had were not because of fault with the audio work at all, but rather some problems inherent in the technique used. JMB used some audio clips from the video game by way of explaining some of his editing choices, to make sure that some of his larger changes are understood clearly, while they sound clear and smooth they are also clearly from a different source and do not match the rest of the audio. We’ll get to that later though. There are no hard cutting or other visual or audio editing whiplashes that I could find. As such I give the Video/Audio an 8 or 9 out of 10.

Now on to the movie itself. JMB showed real intelligence and dedication here as he goes. There’s no edit that calls attention to itself at all. Having not read the cutlist I can honestly say that often times I was completely oblivious intellectually to many of the cuts, and that’s coming from somebody that knows Batman Begins backwards and forwards. Rather than consciously acknowledging many of these edits they served more to alter the mood and tone of the film. Providing a more vicious and visceral experience, with a deeper understanding of the psyche of Bruce Wayne. And for a movie that was already pretty deeply psychological that’s saying a lot. Now we’ve a more subtle, tighter, more refined film.

Other edits are of course more noticeable, and many of them are for the better. The removal of the goofy, utterly misplaced and misguided humor is hugely refreshing. In particular the removal of the “nice coat” set up and then pay off was a Godsend. Often times the original Batman Begins feels as though it’s hedging it’s bets, not wanting to go too dark or too serious for fear of alienating an audience that has been primed to expect Batman and Robin when it comes to their Batman films. Now that hemming and hawing is gone, and in it’s place is a more confident movie tonally and stylistically.

Batman himself is changed a great deal by these edits. Now instead of entering wanton destruction mode at the drop of a hat we have a Batman that, yes, is learning to be a hero but is also smart and calculated. Batman does not run around blowing everything in his path to smithereens for seemingly no reason. As a result the character becomes more fascinating and I found myself more easily able to root for him and his cause.

Of course…one of the biggest flaws of the movie has always been Katie Holmes. Something JMB attempted to fix in a truly inspired manner. He re-works all of Holmes dialogue giving her a deeper, more grown, mature adult voice. I was shocked how much just this small tweak, small in terms of the movie though undoubtedly a huge undertaking in terms of the work done to accomplish it, improves her very weak performance. In the original film Holmes seems girlish and outmatched as an actor at every instance. She does not belong on screen with the likes of Gary Oldman, Christian Bale, and Liam Neeson and I don’t think anybody would argue otherwise. Now however…just making her feel more adult helps considerably. I would be lying if I didn’t say that sometimes the audio re-working does not work, however. The voice coming from that character just does not match the fresh faced kid clearly on screen. Nor does it always seem to match the lip movements for some reason. Admittedly the lip movement problem could be caused by Katie Holmes perplexing habit of speaking every line of dialogue through the corner of her mouth as if the other side of her face has suddenly become stricken with paralysis. Over all this is probably the biggest plus of this edit aside from the removal of the goofy humor. Rachel Dawes is finally a believable strong, female character.

Unfortunately I think the biggest failing of this edit in my opinion is the final act, with Batman chasing down the Microwave Emitter. While I understand and respect what JMB did here, my own personal bias and some of the smaller issues with the audio not matching the video quite effectively dragged the Subway chase down making it feel somewhat flat and less interesting. Jim Gordon is and always have been my favorite character in the Batman pantheon, even more so than Batman himself, so for me seeing him driving the Batmobile in a real team up with Batman and seeing him play a true active role in the climax unlike the ineffectual Gordon of the Burton/Schumacher films – though it may have been somewhat goofy here or there – was really exciting and cool for me. The edit works this way, and makes sense, but it just doesn’t play as triumphant and heroic to me as the original climax.

It’s not helped by the video game dialogue overlays that I mentioned earlier. Unfortunately they are a necessity here in order to fully explain what’s happening. But the performances do not carry the right urgency and emotion, and don’t make much logical sense to me. They feel out of place, and that’s because they are. While I don’t fault JMB for using them, and respect what he was doing and do think that he accomplished his goal fairly effectively, my preference is still for the official movie climax with Jim Gordon. There’s more excitement in there for me.

That all said, faults aside, with some minor tweaking I would happily place this on the shelf as a replacement of the original Batman Begins as it is truly a masterful work. This is a highly enjoyable version of the movie, and a wholly new experience for a Batman that was already in love with this movie flaws and all. Thanks to JMB for all his hard work and I look forward to watching this edit of the movie again and again.

9 out of 10 overall rating.

The first time I saw BATMAN BEGINS was when the family rented the film when it came out on DVD in 2005. I had grown up on Bruce Timm’s animated Batman series, and that’s where my interest in the character stemmed from. My thoughts back then: Scarecrow freaked me out, Katie Holmes was hot, and Bale made a decent if unremarkable Batman. A few years later, after THE DARK KNIGHT was released, I re-visited BEGINS and found it lacking. I no longer had a crush on Katie Holmes, and while I loved the more fantastical elements like Bruce’s ninja-training and the fear gas, the film dropped the ball too many times and was a disappointing start to Christopher Nolan’s set of Bat-films.

My problems? The overplayed ‘mwa-ha-ha’ villainy during Bruce’s training, low-brow humour (guy looking in coffee cup, “nice coat”, etc), unsubtle dialogue between Crane and Rachel, Holmes seemed too young to play such a mature character… and my biggest gripe: the film entered dumbass-American-action-movie mode too often. Too much wanton destruction and a goofy climax which saw Jim Gordon take control of the Tumbler to help out our hero.

To my delight, JMB’s DARK CUT addressed practically every issue I had with the film. I had to check it out.

A lot of work obviously went into this fan-edit, and mad props to the editor for being so sensible and creative! Removing the young Bruce’s goofiest moment (waving back at Rachel) made that scene much more human. The inserted footage of a sniper shooting Joe Chill blended right in with perfect colour correction, and the vfx added to the shots from the drugged Rachel’s POV worked a treat, adding another dimension to the chase scene (which Nolan really should’ve done in the first place). Lots of little annoyances (such as Falcone’s corny dialogue when he meets Bruce, or Rachel being bitchy to Bruce on his birthday) were removed. I was shocked initially to hear Katie Holmes’ new voice, but I quickly got used to it. She suddenly sounded mature… and sexy! Awesome idea and execution. I didn’t miss a single cut gag, and to boot the best ones (“a black… tank” and a number of Alfred’s lines) were left in.

The one cut that drove me to download the DARK CUT was the removal of Gordon from the climax, and I must say, it put much better emphasis on the struggle between Ra’s and Batman, how the pupil had surpassed the teacher. Good stuff. The one problem with this change was that after Batman gives Gordon a fear toxin antidote, Gordon disappears for the film’s ending. A bit irksome, but the trade-off for a straight-faced and believable climax was worth it. The reworked ending, with the call-back to Rachel and Bruce’s childhood, was touching and framed their relationship well.

A few problems showed up along the way. The aforementioned conversation should’ve had more dialogue cut, I felt. As it stands, Bruce tells Rachel that he was a coward when he was younger, then says that justice is about more than revenge (an idea that’s communicated well enough through the narrative, anyway). She then tells him that deep down, he may still be that same great kid she knew. I feel this conversation would flow better if it went straight from Bruce claiming he was a coward as a young man, to Rachel contradicting his sentiment by praising the younger Bruce. Finally, the credits made for a damp squib of an ending. The pieces of text were huge and seemed slightly off-sync with the music at moments. I also didn’t appreciate not getting a full credits sequence.

What could’ve been cut that wasn’t? The original film suffered from too many call-backs, I think, and these eventually got tiring and were a cheap way of stirring emotion and communicating themes to the audience. For example, Thomas’ stethoscope or Alfred’s cliche “why do we fall?”. Deciding which call-backs could be cut would require some amount of analysis. But the one moment that is referenced twice: Bruce sacrificing his footing for a killing stroke. Ra’s Al Ghul announces that Bruce never learned to mind his surroundings later in the film, and this is referenced again at what should be the film’s most powerful moment – the death of Ra’s. The second reference just isn’t necessary, considering the tension it drains. The one edit that should’ve been reconsidered, IMO, was the removal of Ra’s telling Bruce that the League of Shadows tried to destroy Gotham using economics. (I like the implication that the League’s efforts to ruin the city began long ago, and that perhaps they inadvertently contributed to Gotham’s current economic woes.)

Two edits I would’ve liked to see included in this DARK CUT (perhaps in a future release?) were the removal of the romantic tension between Rachel and Finch (if only because she hooks up with another co-worker in THE DARK KNIGHT) and some alteration of the scene where Loeb is interrogated by Batman. I admit that Bale’s Batman brought the lulz a lot in his second outing, but not so much in BEGINS… except for this scene. He’s intense, laughably intense. If the image were distorted, some of Batman’s shaking would be lost – maybe the shots of Batman from Loeb’s POV, when he’s hanging upside down, could’ve been flipped vertically.

Editing 9/10
There were a few head-scratcher moments (eg. a shot was used twice over a short period, with the footage reversed the second time), but overall it was a professional and clean job, with no awkward transitions or flashing frames.

Video 9/10
The quality was acceptable for an avi.

Audio 10/10
I had no problems, really. The added video game dialogue worked fine and patched up the narrative admirably.

Overall 9/10
DARK CUT is just the edit BATMAN BEGINS needed to sit alongside THE DARK KNIGHT. And I’d say that with JMB’s help, BEGINS manages to eclipse even the latter. A stellar job.

Great job! I really enjoyed this.

The cuts were well chosen and produced a film that felt a bit more on par with the tone of The Dark Knight, and overall flowing much better. I was amazed at how dramatically different Katie Holmes’ character seemed here! Gone is the bitchiness, and with the change in her voice’s pitch (jarringly noticeable at first, but so natural that you get used to it quickly) Rachel Dawes became a character I could actually accept as an Assistant DA.

I did notice a couple problems, however. In the scene where Lucius and Bruce first drive the Tumbler, the bits cut from Lucius’ lines kinda stand out. My biggest problem was with the DVD, which had problems loading on my Blu-Ray player (although once it finally got started there were no further issues). Overall, a great experience!

*This rating was given before reviews were required*