Batman Begins — Blu-ray Review
Batman Begins courtesy Warner Bros.
Batman Begins, the 2005 movie from Christopher Nolan with Christian Bale as "Batman," successfully restarted the DC Comics franchise for the big screen. The movie explored the origins of the character, from the death of his parents as a young boy, to donning the batsuit for the first time. The movie was a huge hit, and grossed over $350 million worldwide. The sequel,
The Dark Knight opens today, with critics and fans already raving over the performance by the late Heath Ledger. I wanted to refresh my memory by revisiting
Batman Begins before heading to the theater, and, thankfully, Warner Bros recently released the movie on Blu-ray (it had previously been released on DVD and HD DVD).
I regretted not seeing
Batman Begins in the theater; my first viewing was on my 32" TV when the DVD was first released. My second viewing, this Blu-ray release, was an obvious upgrade from the DVD. Not only have I moved on to a larger screen (60"), but the 1080p transfer is leaps and bounds better than the 480p DVD. Warner Bros has also bumped up the audio for the release, offering a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio track, or Dolby Digital tracks in English, French, Spanish, Japanese and Portuguese (with English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese subtitles).
While most of the material on this set has been repurposed from previous releases, it's still excellent material. The "In-Movie Experience" provides various interviews with the cast and crew using picture-in-picture while the movie plays in the background. The IME includes its own navigation system allowing the viewer to quickly skip to the next scene using the remote. Additional footage focusing on the writing, CGI Batman effects, and the stunts. "Behind The Story" is a series of featurettes that total nearly 2 hours of material. Each featurette focuses on one aspect of the movie, and together they create a comprehensive guide to the work that went into the film. Warner Bros has also included a stills gallery, theatrical trailer, and "Confidential Files" featuring information on the hardware, enemies, allies and mentors in the movie. "The Dark Knight IMAX Prologue" is the first six minutes from the new movie shot on IMAX cameras, and can only be found on the Blu-ray release. Watching this makes me want to run to the theater to see
The Dark Knight. -
Gord Lacey
Buy Batman Begins on Amazon.com.
