Great Direction for the nearly dead franchise

Rating: 9/10 (27 March 2007)

After the last two Batman movies which were just silly, this is a much welcomed addition. Gone are the cartoonish characters. Gone are the artsy flashy colors. Gone are the empty plots...
This film has an actual storyline to instead of Batman just trying to catch some random arch-villain. It shows how Batman came into being; Bruce Wayne in China is brought into an ancient society of men devoted to fighting criminals which was a good way of explaining it. Yes the comic books have done that but in regards to the films it hadn't been done yet.
The cast was very good...Christian Bale did a great job as Bruce Wayne. Liam Nieson has pretty much been typecast into the tragic father/mentor role for action films but he does it well. Tom Wilkinson, Katie Holmes, Cilian Murphy, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and Rutger Hauer all do a great job...even Ken Watanabe does great in his small role.
It was very fun to watch Batman come alive on screen...the trial and error that Bruce Wayne goes through in creating Batman, the acquisition of his gear and the amazing Tumbler as the first Batmobile. And of course seeing a younger Gordon who does more than point and say "Batman" like he did in the previous films and a more active Alfred.
The reason this is a great film is because unlike the previous Batman movies, this one does not rely solely on the Batsuit or the action scenes to sustain it. The action is great, don't get me wrong but there's more to this film than Batman running around beating up thugs.