The entire cast delivers great performances, which is not a surprise for such a talented ensemble. Holmes received a lot of negative criticism, but I thought she was just fine for a role that didn’t require much and don’t see what the complaints were. However, I am in the minority as Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Dawes in the new film.
The advertising team for this new release should be embarrassed because the marketing language is rather silly. They trumpet this gift set as one-of-a-kind and inform consumers they only have a limited time to buy it, which is laughable considering how lame the extras are. Aside from the previously released 2-Disc Special Edition DVD, this new set offers lenticular art of the DVD cover image and five collectible postcards with images that aren’t anything special, so I am not sure who would be collecting them.
No surprise that this release is part of The Dark Knight promotion, but the related items are pretty poor and show a surprising lack of imagination. There’s a 128MB flash drive loaded with 18 images from the new movie and an exclusive two-minute sneak peak on one of the DVDs, which may be of value if you don’t have access to the Internet as The Dark Knight may possibly be the most marketed film of the year. The last and least bonus is movie money to see The Dark Knight, but it’s only a $7.50 value that has to be used within a month. That’s not even full price to most matinees at the nice theatres in Southern California.
For those who already own Batman Begins, there’s no reason to pick this up regardless of how obsessive your fandom is. If you don’t own it and are thinking of buying it, go back and find the two-disc deluxe edition that came out in 2005 because that came with a small booklet filled with the stories that influenced the film. It features Detective Comics #27, the first Batman story; the Secret Origin story “The Man Who Falls”; and an excerpt from Batman: The Long Halloween. For some reason though, it is missing Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One, which was surely just as influential.
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