This moody action movie is where it all began for me as a home cinema reviewer
(Image credit: What Hi-Fi?)
Superhero movies are everywhere, to the point that even die-hard fans are reporting a severe case of burnout with the genre – especially when it comes to Marvel productions.
But while Marvel may be the current top dog for comic films, it wasn’t the studio that started the trend. Believe it or not, it was DC with Batman Begins, which turns 20 this week.
The film launched in June 2005, and back then was the first “good” mainstream superhero movie fans had seen in years.
It arrived three full years before the first Iron Man movie, which was the starting point from which Marvel created its current cinematic universe, and borrowed heavily from director Christopher Nolan's take on the caped crusader.
Many have since forgotten its impact, with many fans of Nolan’s run on Batman focusing on its sequel, The Dark Knight, while younger audiences favour the newer Robert Pattinson-led version.
In my opinion, Batman Begins is a trailblazing title worth revisiting for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, it changed the direction of superhero movies. Previously, mainstream comic book adaptations had tended to lean into the zanier side of the source material, taking inspiration from Tim Burton and Michael Keaton's 1990s take on the character.
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This culminated in a series of terrible movies, including Michael Schumacher’s disastrous Batman Forever, which, despite having an all-star cast, was too “comic-booky” for even the most ardent of fans. I still haven’t forgiven him for the bat nipples…
Director Christopher Nolan took the source material in an entirely different direction, creating a grounded version of Batman that stripped out the fantastical and sci-fi elements, instead focusing on his skills as a detective, martial artist and use of realistic technology.
Add to that straight-up excellent performances from an all-star cast, which includes Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Cillian Murphy, Katie Holmes and Gary Oldman, and here we had a truly special creation no one saw coming.
Secondly, it remains an excellent movie for testing home cinema hardware thanks to its stellar production and direction.
Batman Begins was one of the first test discs I used when I became a professional Shiny Things Chaser many moons ago, and it was a popular test disc at What Hi-Fi? towers too. The disc is still in our test room library!
The dark cityscape of Gotham City, which uses a lot of footage from Chicago, remains a great way to check a TV’s shadow detail. Rewatching the movie 20 years on, it is genuinely amazing how much extra detail a modern-day OLED TV can surface compared to the LCD and plasma sets I used to review all those years ago.
The heavy-hitting fight scenes are also excellent for checking motion handling.
Though nowadays we tend to use a famous car chase scene from the newer film, The Batman, to test a TV's audio chops, the score from Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard has aged well.
Featuring swooping orchestral string sections, thumping action segments and one of the coolest-sounding and looking Batmobiles of all time, it is awesome – even if the disc version is 'limited' to 5.1 rather than Dolby Atmos surround sound.
I still feel a minor swell of adrenaline whenever I hear the mightily impressive Vespertilio from the soundtrack... which is probably a little dangerous given my age.
So if you haven't watched Batman Begins before, or on a modern high-tech TV, now's a great time to right that wrong as it turns twenty. Trust me, it’s worth it.
Alastair is What Hi-Fi?’s editor in chief. He has well over a decade’s experience as a journalist working in both B2C and B2B press. During this time he’s covered everything from the launch of the first Amazon Echo to government cyber security policy. Prior to joining What Hi-Fi? he served as Trusted Reviews’ editor-in-chief. Outside of tech, he has a Masters from King’s College London in Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion, is an enthusiastic, but untalented, guitar player and runs a webcomic in his spare time.
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