Solid & well played but over long and lacking style!

Rating: 1/10 (4 April 2013)

Batman Begins had to be one of the most highly anticipated movie reboots even. After the farce that was the Schumacher sequels to the glorious Burton films it had to be good.
And it was.......and wasn't!
I think I may be the only person on the planet who doesn't see Christopher Nolan as the new film messiah and his Batman films are riddled with, not flaws because there is noting wrong with them but just things that don't quite fit!
I'm writing this review to encompass all 3 Nolan Batman films because they pretty much come as one package so no sense in writing a review for each that would be identical.
Good news is that Nolan is no hack, his attention to detail is second to none and the accuracy to the source material which was missing in previous adaptations is more than present in is films to appease any comic book whiner.
This is where it ends for me. The films incorporate all the essential ingredients of Batman but it comes away leaving me feeling a bit cold. The casting is a bit off in places. Bale shines as Bruce Wayne in probably the best performance of that character but his Batman seems forced, cheesy and uncomfortable. Support Comes from some great names but this has backfired. Michael Caine is superb as always but throughout the trilogy I always felt I was watching Michael Caine play Alfred and not Alfred himself. Gary Oldman is much more convincing and plays Gordon almost perfectly.
The biggest problem is that it just doesn't have any style to suggest it is a Batman film. Batman Begins had a nice look to a bronze tinted Gotham complete with monorail and some interesting dark architecture. The sequels unfortunately paint Gotham as a bland faceless city. The flyover shots could be stock footage from any urban 'metropolis' in the world. The fight scenes are dreadfully shot with quick cuts and close up camera work that is reminiscent of bygone techniques before hong kong set a new standard. This brawling method of shooting works well for a Pre-Batman Bruce Wayne in the first film but after you expect something much sharper and stylish to the combat.
The faceless style overflows into the dramatic scenes as well. If you were to turn on the telly and see one of the scenes between non masked characters you would have a hard time telling it is a Batman film.
With that lies the greatest flaw of all. Nolan takes a comic book character and puts him way too far into the real world. The films play out like a dramatic crime thriller. po faced, over serious and...possibly Nolan's biggest flaw, always over long. The films run an average of 2.5 hours each and time is dragged out on too much talking and very little Batman especially in the third instalment where we barely get 20 minutes of caped action. (A complaint directed at Burton for Batman Returns)
In transferring Batman to the reality of our world Nolan sacrificed some of the fantastic and wonder that makes comic book characters desirable. Batman get's away with it because of his source material but has lost some of the awe that was in the comics.
The greatest asset to this series is something Nolan got right and is the cornerstone of any comic.
The Villains!
Every one played beautifully and steals the show. Ledger as the Joker is wonderfully deranged, adding just a sprinkle of past performances into his own manic mix even though his makeup strayed a bit too far from the source for comfort. Hardy cannot be topped at Bane. A sumptuous vocal performance with a commanding physical presence, he makes almost every line quotable.
Cillian Murphy has always been a great actor in my eyes and he does not disappoint here although I do feel he was not given anywhere near enough screen time as Scarecrow and that will always be a grim point.
Still worth all your money in DVD and Blu-ray sales though!