Year One in glorious Technicolour!

Rating: 9/10 (27 June 2008)

Bruce Wayne is lost. Seeking criminals to fight by getting locked up with them in south east Asia, he cuts a strong, skilled fighter but a sorry figure as his crusade for justice has turned sour and left him bitter and without direction. After being sought out by the league of shadows he is trained by the legendary fighter Ducard (Played by a Liam Neeson who does not seem like the same bored man who played Qui Gon Jinn) who adds the finishing touches to Bruce's skills showing him the arts of deception and the skills he needs to combat evil and to become an agent of Justice.
However, after his relationship with the league of shadows sours, Bruce returns to Gotham, wiser, with an edge he did not have before. He teams up with a disenfranchised employee called Lucius Fox and raids Wayne Enterprises for the latest equipment in order to carry out his war on crime. After an hour of pre-amble and character set-up we are treated to some real Batman action and the movie never looks back as we watch the lost boy Bruce become the caped crusader, the dark knight that the comic books fans have been crying out for, for years. In this the best comic book adaptation ever made, we are treated to a tour-de-force of acting, direction, drama and, yes at times, even comedy, as we witness the birth of the Batman.
The performance by Christian Bale is excellent, combining the driven, rage fuelled Wayne with the super-slick playboy returning to the city. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman add weight as the butler and the inside company man respectively. The direction is smart and subtle, turning Gotham from the all too dark visions of Tim Burton and clown like circus of Joel Schumaker into a real city, with dirt and rain and real people residing.
Left open for sequels but with enough content to make a good film on its own this is the best Batman film so far and bodes well for the series from now on.