Movie Review | DVD Review

Such a great movie like Batman Begins shamefully falls short when it comes to the DVD release of their two-disc deluxe edition, receiving only a B-.

DVD Details
DVD Release Date: October 18, 2005
Released By: Warner Bros.
Versions Available: Widescreen, Full Screen and Two Disc Deluxe Edition
Version Reviewed: Two Disc Deluxe Edition
Discs: 2
Movie Rating: PG-13 “intense action violence, disturbing images and some thematic elements.”

Movie Summary
Batman Begins is the story of tycoon Bruce Wayne’s journey to discover himself after his parents are murdered. Bruce (played by Christian Bale) leaves Gotham City only to return, years later, as the city’s savior – the Dark Knight. But in order to be effective, he needs allies and training. The training is there, but allies are hard to come by in crime-ridden Gotham City where some you think friends could be your enemy.

Report Card
DVD Packaging & Presentation: B-
DVD Ease of Navigation: C-
DVD Special Features: B
Overall Impression of DVD: B-

DVD Packaging and Presentation: B-
The DVD packaging is clean and nice. When you buy it, the DVD case is packaged with a comic book in a DVD box. The theme, colors, and artwork all tie in nicely between the box, DVD case, comic book, and DVDs. The overall theme presentation is much better than the correlation between the navigation and presentation of the actual DVD content.

When you pop in the first DVD, you are presented with one movie trailer (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and one promo trailer for the Smallville TV series DVD. Then several short scenes from the beginning of Batman (leading up to his training) fade into each other, leading to the menu appearing at the bottom of the screen (Play | Scenes | Features | Languages). While the menu is up scenes continue to play in the background focusing on Bruce Wayne becoming Batman (close up of the bat cowl, Bruce sharpening his batarang weapon, the putting on of the bat gloves, belt, etc.). After about a minute, it goes into the actual movie.

Disc two (the Special Features disc) is where Warner Bros. really screwed up. When you put it in, the first thing that pops up is a language selection. You have to select either English or French (what happened to Spanish)? After selecting it, you’re taken to a comic book screen. There’s no text menu to tell you what to do. You have to navigate (see next part of review) to find things. Not only is it poorly executed, but the look and feel is nothing like the rest of the packaging and presentation.

DVD Ease of Navigation: C-
The two-disc deluxe edition of Batman Begins has one major flaw – Ease of Navigation. The problem isn’t with disc one. Disc one is clean and it’s easy to find what you are looking for. The problems begin when you insert disc two, which has a completely different look, navigation style, and presentation. If the disc wasn’t in the same package, you’d wonder if it belonged.

Disc one is clean, has easy to read and select text, and gets you to where you want to go fast. But when you pop in disc two the look changes to comic book style. The cursor starts highlighted on one side of the batwing. OK… what does it do? You have to select it to find out. You go to another comic book page and if you press your up, down, left, right button on the remote on any of these pages, it might select something (like a piece of wall) that you have to click on to see what it is (a feature). The look, style, and feel has nothing to do with disc one and is very poorly executed.

Another problem is that one of the features – Tankman Begins – is on disc one and not the special features disc – disc two. If a studio is going to release deluxe, platinum, multiple discs, or collectors editions then they need to make all parts of the navigation and presentation flow smoothly.

The funny thing is that Warner Bros. presents disc two as what it calls an “interactive comic”. In reality, it is an interactive mess.

DVD Special Features: B
Here is a list of the Special Features on the Batman Begins DVD:

- Tankman Begins (Disc One)
- Batman Movie Trailer (Disc One)
- Batman: The Journey Begins feature (Disc Two)
- Shaping Mind and Body (Disc Two)
- Batman – The Tumbler (Disc Two)
- Gotham City Rises (Disc Two)
- Saving Gotham City (Disc Two)
- Genesis of the Bat (Disc Two)
- Confidential Files (Disc Two)

When you insert disc one and select Features, you are presented with only two options – Tankman Begins and the Batman Movie Trailer. It is confusing that these were here and not on disc two which is the Special Features disc. But regardless, Tankman Begins is a very fun and humorous presentation that originally aired before the MTV Awards, in order to introduce the award ceremony. The host catches a ride with Batman in the batmobile… er… Tumbler, where very creative editing creates a whole new unique story. And if you’re a Napolean Dynamite fan, you’ll love this feature even more.

Disc two is where the bulk of features are located. The navigation is very sloppy as Warner Bros. tried to present the disc as an “interactive comic”. Bad move. You don’t have any easy selection of the feature you want to view. Instead you have to navigate through this “interactive comic” and select objects that have nothing to do with the feature you’re presented with. What makes it worse is that when a feature starts there are no titles, therefore you still don’t know what feature you’re viewing. You have to guess based on the content. The only way around this is to navigate all the way to the end of the comic book and select an icon that is a piece of paper with text on it. When selecting that icon, you FINALLY get a list of the features.

The features themselves are very informative. You get a great behind-the-scenes look at various aspects of the movie (the visual effects, miniatures, progress of the story, building of Gotham City, creation of the batsuit and tumbler, etc.). The only problem is that the features don’t appear to be made for the DVD. Instead, it seems like they were lifted from the electronic press kit that Warner Bros. sent to TV media when the original movie launched (thus the reason for no titles or credits at the end). You basically get the same thing with each feature – interviews with lots of cut scenes spliced in. Actually there’s one feature (can’t tell you the title since they don’t give it) that has no interviews, but rather a lot of behind the scenes clips put to Batman music.

Overall the features are good, but not great. A lot of great things are missing that most DVDs have. For example, there are no deleted scenes or commentary from the director, actors, etc. Overall it seems that this disc was rushed and rehashed a lot of material originally given to the media. It’s one of the poorest executions of movie special features that I’ve ever seen. And it’s a shame because the movie itself is incredible.

Overall Impressions of DVD: B-
Batman Begins is such a great movie that it’s a shame that Warner Bros. did such a poor execution on the two-disc deluxe edition. Perhaps when they release the Batman Begins Platinum Deluxe Director’s Cut Collector’s Limited Edition they will finally get it right.

DVD Kudos
- Comic Book Comes in DVD Package
- Excellent Movie

DVD Annoyances
- Bad Navigation on Disc Two
- You Must Select Language Before Getting to Menu on Disc Two
- Discs are Inconsistent in Style and Execution
- One Special Feature on Disc One that Should Have Been on Disc Two Instead
- You Don’t Know What You’re Selecting to View on Disc Two

List of Movie Trailers
- Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (when DVD is first inserted)
- Smallville DVD Preview (when DVD is first inserted)

Keep in mind that this is a review of the DVD, not the movie. We give the movie a solid A – one of 2005’s best movies.

To read the movie review, click here.

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