The definite Batman movie.

Rating: 8/10 (11 September 2015)

After Batman and Robin, another Batman movie titled Batman Triumphant was scheduled to be released in 1999 and to be directed by Joel Schumacher with George Clooney, Chris O'Donnell and Alicia Silverstone set to reprise their roles, but was cancelled following the critical failure and box office disappointment of Batman and Robin and numerous of unsuccessful projects to resurrect Batman on screen, but all of that changed with the success of comic book movies like Daredevil, Spider-Man and X-Men, and Warner Bros. Pictures decided to reboot the Batman franchise with the 2005 film directed by Christopher Nolan and the first part of his epic DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY, Batman Begins.
The goal was to get the audience to care for Batman and Bruce Wayne and this film was released on June 17, 2005 to critical positive reviews and grossed over $374 million worldwide and spawned two sequels in Chris Nolan's Batman trilogy: The Dark Knight, which was released in 2008 and The Dark Knight Rises, which was released in 2012.
The story is an origin story, showing how Bruce Wayne became Batman, and the film does not fail in this kind of movie. It shows his initial fear of bats, we get to see the death of his parents, his journey to becoming Batman, and his fight against Ra's al Ghul and The Scarecrow as they plan to destroy Gotham City.
Now, this film is inspired by the classic Batman comic book stories such as, The Man Who Falls, Batman: Year One and Batman: The Long Halloween. Director Christopher Nolan does a really good job with the source material and with a script that Nolan himself and co-writer David S. Goyer wrote, this is one hell of a DC Comics superhero movie that has gotten all of the praise and attention.
The musical score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard could not have composed a much, darker wonderfully and emotionally satisfying orchestral score. Batman's theme in this film is exciting to hear and when it finally shows Batman in his costume, I just screamed and cheered like a fanboy in awe.
The acting is just fantastic this time. I give credit to Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman because he played the duo-role beautifully and amazingly and I thought I would end up hating his performance, but I actually did not.
Michael Caine plays Alfred Pennyworth and he just brings so much to that character and I really enjoyed his performance. Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes was a little confusing, but I enjoyed her too. Gary Oldman and Liam Neeson are great as Lieutenant Jim Gordon and Henri Ducard / Ra's al Ghul and they are just over the top.
Tom Wilkinson is good as Carmine Falcone and he pulled off the great performance of a villain. And when the scene came up where he says, "What in the hell are you?" and Batman grabs him and says, "I'm Batman". It had me cracking up, but also cheering. Morgan Freeman plays Lucius Fox and he is just simply cool showing Christian Bale all of Batman's gadgets and weaponry. These performances are just top-notch, but the only one I did not enjoy was Cillian Murphy as Johnathan Crane / The Scarecrow. Murphy is good as Johnathan Crane, but when he is the Scarecrow, his Scarecrow just drives me insane.
The Batsuit and the Tumbler were the coolest designs for this film and Christopher Nolan made awesome choices in hiring Lindy Hemming as costume designer and Nathan Crowley as production designer. The cinematography is shot really well and I give credit to Wally Pfister, because he did a darn good job and did a great job with the other two films in the DARK KNIGHT trilogy.
The most powerful elements in this film is the common motif used in this film, which is fear and critics and audiences noted this that fear was a common motif throughout the entire 140-minute movie and this film has went on to be known as one of the best superhero movies ever made.
The film does have a dark and gritty tone compared with the other Batman films and I will never get tired of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy. It's an epic three-film trilogy with good action, good writing and a good leading man and that is Christian Bale.
Overall, I love this new Batman film adaptation. Is it better than the original 1989 film? Yes. Is it darker and grittier than Batman Returns? Yes. Is it humorous? There are scenes of humor in this film, but not that much. Is this the Batman movie we have been waiting for? Yeah, it is. I love this film to death and like THE DARK KNIGHT and other superhero movies that I like, I have no problem re-watching this again and again. I give it the best rating I can possibly give it and that is an 8.4 / 10. Perfect and it is a hell of a lot between then what some people called the disaster that was Batman & Robin.
Christopher Nolan, Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Comics and Legendary Pictures, what a great job you done and you should be proud