The coolest movie of the summer!

Rating: Null/10 (15 June 2005)

I've been a Batman fan essentially from the moment I was born so like most Batman fans out there, I was pretty psyched at the idea of a fifth Batman film. However, I was not so psyched to hear that the filmmakers would be starting from scratch and that BATMAN BEGINS would be a stand alone movie. I was also quite disappointed that Joel Schumacher would not be back to direct. Despite what most fans say about him, I think Schumacher did a good job with both BATMAN FOREVER and BATMAN & ROBIN. When it was announced that Christopher Nolan would be the director of BATMAN BEGINS, I was not too pleased. The guy who directed INSOMNIA does Batman? It didn't sound that enticing to me and it made me a bit nervous about how the film would turn out. I became even more nervous when I saw footage from BATMAN BEGINS. None of the footage I saw of BATMAN BEGINS had impressed me. Everything I had seen from the Batmobile to the casting of Katie Holmes had just seemed so wrong. To my surprise, I liked the movie. The look of the Batmobile (as well as the Batsuit) and the casting of Katie Holmes still bugged the hell out of me, but I was able to put those two things aside most of the time and just enjoy the flick. Although it starts off a bit slow, the pace quickly picks up around the 45 minute mark and from there on out, it's quite a ride. Christian Bale makes the best Batman out of any of the actors that have played him so far. Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, and Cillian Murphy are all equally impressive in their respective roles even though some of them underused. As I said before, Katie Holmes' performance is quite weak. It doesn't help that her character is completely one-dimensional. Other than the flimsy character development of Katie Holmes' character, the writing is for the most part very good. David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan wrote a nice solid script Hopefully, they will return to write the sequel if there is one. 7/10