a spectacular re-invention of the series, 2nd (or perhaps as good as) Burton's 89 vision

Rating: 10/10 (16 June 2005)

It's always a challenge to take material from the comic to the screen, and to make it powerful enough, and entertaining enough, without getting overly preachy with the material, getting hyper kinetic with the action, or worst of all losing your audience. The last Batman film, Batman & Robin, committed the later crime, and put a stigma on the franchise for several years. But now there is Christopher Nolan, talented director behind the cult favorite Memento, and the under-rated Insomnia remake of 2002, who has taken the origins of the Dark Knight into a different direction, or at least to a better one. His film, Batman Begins, has the power, has the entertainment, and it doesn't cheat its target audience (the die-hard Batman fans) or the general public. There isn't as much humor as the first film (this film's only tiny liability), but there is that genuine dark sensibility that can take in kids as well as adults. That the story and characters are as important as the action sequences and fights is another bonus.
The cast Nolan has put together is no less better than expected. Christian Bale is, arguably, a more compelling Bruce Wayne/Batman than Michael Keaton, or at the least he tries to put some feeling into his performance in ways that either Keaton didn't do or just in a different way. Since Nolan has license to reinvent the series, he changes around certain elements with Batman's origin (that I will not reveal here), and it brings about some changes in the line-up. Michael Caine is a good butler Alfred; Morgan Freeman is dependable as always as Batman's supplier; Gary Oldman this time is Gordon; and Nolan is also wise in not only Bruce's quasi-love interest (played by Katie Holmes, not too bad), but also in character actors like Tom Wilkinson and Cillian Murphy as Dr. Crane. And there's also Liam Neeson, in an unlikely (though maybe familiar- Star Wars/Kingdom of Heaven?) mentor for Wayne to form his alter-ego.
Simply this- Batman Begins works because as a summer popcorn action blockbuster, it's definitely not too dumb or tire-bound in clichés (not that there aren't a few, which is a given), and it keeps enough adrenaline and surprises with the action/set pieces. The classic, Gothic look of Burton's films is gone for the most part, but what's replaced by Nolan is often creepy and urban (if at least a consistent color of browns), which gives Gotham a cool edge;sometimes I couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. And I liked how Nolan did certain things with the structure of the story early on- which is his specialty as a true-blue professional- in a kind of non-linear way, keeping the audience off balance but not too much to know where things were headed. Basically, if you've been waiting over ten years for a Batman movie that works, this is it.