I saw the 8:45 show and it was packed! Palisades Mall Loews is always a nut house during the first week release. I was going to see it at the IMAX, but decided to save a few bucks. Anyway, I went to Cheeburger, Cheeburger and knocked up there 1 pounder burger hmmmmmm before the show. Pretty good night, I have to say!

Great movie, but the action sequences kept it from being excellent. After seeing this and Cinderella Man, I cannot wait until the vomit/headache inducing camera closeups and editing are retired. Please let us enjoy an action sequence. Please refer to Rocky, Commmando, or even The Transporter to mimic a great fight camera. This trend is really starting to ruin movies for me.

Also, please do not tell me Nolan was attempting to mimic the craziness of bats or some crap like that. It is insulting. He did a great job with everything except the action sequences. I really hope they change directors.

It's insulting? He wants to move away from wire-fu and big orchestrated fight scenes and show what a fight is. Messy and very choatic.

so you hope they change directors soley because you didn't like that, but yet he did a great job with everything else? That's the real insulting thing here.

Replacing Christopher Nolan is not an option at all, they need to keep this crew together for all future Batman flicks this go-round. I wouldn't change a thing!

Fights can be messy and chaotic without the camera being nauseating. That is a poor excuse. You could not even tell what was happening and you cheat the viewer. They could simply have been pinching eachother's nipples and we would not have known the difference. He did a great job, but eventually action sequences (it is Batman) are going to play an important part in the movie as less character/introduction development is needed. Since he has displayed he cannot direct a coherent action scene, I hope he decides to do something else.

Sorry but it's true. The wanted the fights more "street" and they wanted Batman to be more "human". They didn't want him to appear "superhuman".

I think he did a great job with every part of the movie that didn't involve action. I'd like it if they just had another director come in to film all of the action scenes, since Nolan has repeatedly displayed his inability to direct them.

I still do not buy that. Wayne knew Panther, Tiger, Alleycat, Shelty and all the other fighting styles. That is not very street, normal or human. The UFC is chaotic fighting and they are not using the jockstrap cam. Bale probably spent all that time learning the necessary moves when the editing simply took the hard work away from him. What a waste of time. I think my 60 year old dad could have pulled off the action sequences with the camera and editing direction.

I still don't see what the big deal is with you guys. I watched the moviee like everyone else and i didn't feel like I missed what was happening in the fights. We've all seen movie fights big fuckin' deal. Have you guys lost your imagination? You can't figure out what's going on? I guess people just have to have somethign to bitch about.

The action/fights were fine.


Hey guess what? I couldn't clearly see the Bat on Batman's chest!!!! Fire that fuckin' Nolan!!!!

I think they came across as very raw and hardhitting, true to life, which made this that much more of a very violent flick.

I wish that I could have watched this when I was really little, as it would have scared the crap out of me! I still can't get over how intense this film is. Again, it was more of a psychological thriller/horror film, NOT a cutesy comic book popcorn flick.

Dude, give me a break. :lol:


Wizard Magazine issue 165 for July 2005 pg 31:

FIGHT CLUB "Overall, we had 15 to 20 fights to do in 'Batman Begins,'"says stunt coodinator Paul Jennings. "And Chris Nolan was quite specific about wanting the fighting to be real, as opposed to martial artsy for martial arts' sake. If Batman can take someone out in a simplistic way, he'll do it-he won't do a jump triple-twist just because it looks good. We didn't want Batman to look like this superhuman being-we wanted him to be a man, so we were able to make the fights very gritty."

Oh that's just an awesome quote, thanks.

Overall, the fights were terrific, but I can think of at least an instance or two when I thought "what the hell is going on up there?" because the camera was too close and the editing was too choppy and chaotic.

I think I recall a dialogue scene with a few awkward edits as well.

Personally, I don't think that has anything to do with the camera and the quick cuts. I agree with thelwig14 here. Just because a fight is intended to be gritty and not have the typical martial arts flow to it doesn't mean the editing has to be done in a "chaotic" manner. I think a brawl can be choreographed and displayed in a far better manner then what was displayed for Batman Begins. It simply felt too messy, regardless of whether it was a stylized attempt to show what kind of fighter Batman is.

Just came back from watching it on IMAX.

awesome. :thumbsup:

Sorry, but that's the reasons why the other batman films failed. They didn't bother going to the human side of those villains. we didn't even get into Two face besides a quick glance of him before the make over. You didn't feel any pity for the guy. Riddler either. Mr. Freeze and Ivy. Those characters failed because the films had "less character/introduction"

Nolan did it perfect with focusing on the character and their motive opposed to having them do wire fu and stage a grand scale fight. Looks like you're just bitching about the cutting.


and Rah handed his ass to him and head butted him and said "this is not a dance" putting him into place in telling him to cut the dance crap and just finish the enemy with as dirty as you can get.

The fighting was suppose to be realistic and in that, it's hard to tell who's winning and what happens when someone gets swarmed or dragged into a dark cornor. It's batman, he's not going to take the fight to the open if he doesn't have to.

Just seems stupid to have Nolan not come back or not direct some aspect of the film When that's part of his vision. He doesn't want the fights to be typical cliche of one goon jumping in while the rest look at him. He wanted one guy to jump in and then everyone else to follow him. That creates a situation where you don't know who is on top till the bodies drop. simple as that. He doesn't want you to see Batman as commanding the whole fight. There needs to be some suspense there on who is winning.

All of that can be accomplished without filming what amounts to a two minute blur. Nolan just can't do it. The complaint isn't that people don't like the way the action scenes are performed. We just can't tell what's going on in them. Batman could have been making shadow puppets during every fight and I wouldn't know the difference.

And if it was a static wide shot everyone would be complaining that there wasn't enough movement in the cameras during the action.

just a case of the you can't please everyone's

I can't believe you would want to change a director because you don't like the fight scenes. I mean, you sit here and say he done an awesome job on everything else, 'cept the fight scenes (and that is just your opinion!), yet you want to change directors? Maybe you should go back and start watching the old Dolph Lundberg or Chuck Norris films, more your type.

I purposely think the scenes were shot with Batman fighting in darkish and invisible way, as to keep him a bit invisable, as to not get used to seeing him in the night etc and marvel at his costume, perhaps thats what they wanted, less is more, knowing bats is there is as powerful as seeing him full on.

And to counter this..

(1) They are in a closed area.

(2) They are fighting for a championship, not to survive.

(3) There are rules.

(4) It's a point based system.

Where as when Batman is fighting a thug, he doesn't have those things to worry about. He has to be quick and effective. As Ducard said, it's not a dance, there are no rules. Fight dirty, do what it takes. Not to mention, doin' all this dancing / fighting would require a lot of energy. Doing it with simple kick / punch / fast takedowns, conserves energy.

That is a good point. What do you fear more? Someone you can see about to kick your ass or someone you can't see, but you know can kick your ass?

I thought the interior looked great. The exterior looked horrible to me.

I don't buy it. Nolan just is not good at shooting and putting together action scenes. He's never had to do it if you look at his resume. There were a number of great shots in the film, a few even during the action scenes. But the fights and action were nothing more than a blur, with so many close-ups and quick cuts that I couldn't see it. I wanted to see it. For instance, the way Lucas shot the lightsaber fight in TPM and ROTS. The way Zhang shot the action sequences in Hero. They pull the camera back and shoot it. There is movement with the camera, but it's not so quick you can't follow things, and it's not so close-up that it is a blur. About the only scene that wasn't shot that way were the scenes between Ducard and Wayne.

Still, despite my criticisms, it's a very good film. My other criticisms about things like the Batmobile and one-liners don't take away from the film all that much.

This Movie Rocks Long Live The Batman...............

Good one.

I totally agree. Nolan is a great director, but let's call a spade a spade - his strengths are mood and character, not action. The blurry mess of the actions scenes might make sense for when Bats is taking out thugs, but what about the prison yard fight? That had a cut at about every 1/4 second, and the camera was zoomed so far in, that everything was a blur. And to top it off, Nolan throws everyone in the mud so you can't tell anyone apart. He's just covering everything up, because he doesn't know how to film it properly. And if there's one fight that should have been clear and distinct, it should have been that final one on the train between Bats and Ras, but instead, it was such a jumbled mess that I was tempted to loook away from the screen.