Refreshing take on Batman

Rating: 8/10 (8 July 2015)

Solid Batman movie, and great way to start a trilogy. I saw Batman Begins only now, several years after seeing the Dark Knight. I haven't seen Dark Knight Rises yet. I liked the Dark Knight much more compared to some previous Batman movies from different directors - mainly due Nolan's bit more believable approach to Batman universe (while still not taking itself too seriously) - but somehow these other movies have eluded me so far.
I'm glad I watched Batman Begins. It did well in providing a back story and establishing the essential characters for this and following movies: most importantly Batman, Alfred, Julius and Rachel.
I've always liked origin stories though, so that might factor in. Also I'm no expert at Batman comics and I'm sure there's lot of differences to various comic book versions, but I think this version was quite well written. Especially the Batman's justifications seem believable enough, and Bale does fine job fleshing out both Bruce (with little bit of a American Psyko-vibe though) and Batman.
What I didn't love about the movie's was the main antagonist, as his reasons to cause havoc in Gotham seemed to me to be just a tad bit forced.
If you haven't yet checked out Nolan's version of Batman, this should naturally be the one to start with. Dark Knight worked for me even without seeing this, but you should be able to get much more out of characters by seeing this prior to sequels.