You'll go Batty for this hero

Rating: 9/10 (12 July 2005)

A very strong comic book film based on the Dark Knight. This film blows the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher films out of the water. Where the previous four films were a lot of flash and money, this film is about character and story.
My biggest complaints about the Batman films were the lack of character development and the poor storytelling. They all had some neat colorful villains and some great production value, but the audience never got to know anything really about them. This time director Christopher Nolan (Memento, Insomnia)gets it right on. We get to the root of Bruce Wayne and Batman. A lot of time is spent on Bruce Wayne's childhood and his early troubles. We even get a glimpse of his family life as we learn some things about his father.
The storyline is the origin of Batman and how he becomes the Dark Knight. Played very well by Christian Bale, Bruce Wayne is the reluctant socialite who balances his giant company and fights crime dressed as a bat. Gotham City is being controlled by an evil mob boss played deliciously by Tom Wilkerson. I loved his role. He has some evil cronies on his payroll including a deranged psychiatrist named Crane. He'll later be known as Scarecrow. Wilkerson has control of Gotham, but he isn't the mastermind. That's revealed later on in the film. Wayne is befriended by assistant DA and childhood friend Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes). Her role is a bit hard to take.
I enjoyed the action in the film. Chicago looked great as they did some nifty things to our L' trains. The production value was good as the film wasn't spent on the cheap but it wasn't the over-produced mess of Batman & Robin either.
The cast is top notch with Bale, Wilkerson, Morgan Freeman as sort of a makeshift "Q", Gary Oldman gets to have some fun as a young Commissioner Gordon, but my favorite casting was Michael Caine as Alfred. He was perfectly cast. My only beef is the casting of Holmes as Rachel. I like Katie Holmes, but she wasn't believable in her role and quite simply too young. That's a small complaint. This film will be what many Batman films will have been waiting for. (***1/2)