Best film of 2005 so far!

Rating: 10/10 (15 June 2005)

I have fond memories of Tim Burton's first Batman picture. I saw it when I was 9 and loved it to death but like many movies I loved during my childhood it just simply hasn't aged well. It's shallow, cheesy, and with the exception of a completely over the top performance by way of Jack Nicholsan has little to remember in the acting department. After the initial picture the franchise plummeted into movie hell with three sequels that are some of the worst movies ever created. This franchise was in desperate need of a reboots.
Well here it is ladies and gents. Batman begins is quite simply one of the best comic book movies ever made. Why is that you may ask; well it's because while respecting it's roots it realizes that films aren't comics and grounds the story pretty firmly in what could be reality. Finally you can believe that most of this stuff is actually happening. Christian Bale is hands down the best Batman/Bruce ever put to screen and thanks to the screenwriters he is given lots to work with. Finally Batman's motivations for becoming the bat are fleshed out beyond the sorry Joker killed my parents excuse. He is a fully realized character and Christian bale delivers one of his best performances yet.
Michael Cain is also excellent as the loyal butler Alfred. Cain delivers a warmth and sincerity that the obvious Alfred lacked. Again he is serviced by some great writing and he runs with it. Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow was a genuine surprise. The only thing I've seen him in was 28 Days Later and I wasn't prepared for how good he'd be. Liam Neeson has never given a bad performance and he doesn't fail us now. His character is simply one of the best villains I've seen in a comic movie. The other cast are equally excellent though they don't have much screen time. Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman are quite good as the Q-Like Scientist and innocent police officer respectively. Kattie Holmes didn't annoy me nearly as much as I thought she would, in fact she was actually pretty good and I believed in her feelings for Bruce.
The one weakness this movie has is the quick cut actions scenes. Some of them are fine but most of them are cut so quick in such dark scenes that it make it really hard to tell what's happening. This is really a small complaint for me because I prefer a great story over action scenes any day and boy did this movie deliver. I will draw this review to a close by saying that this is the best movie so far in 2005 and it will most likely be at the top of my top 10 end of the year list.
10outof10