What's Left When the Magic and Fun is Gone

Rating: 1/10 (19 August 2006)

This new take on Batman just doesn't seem to work quite right. Nolan tries to basically get Shakespearean with the character and completely ignore the first four films. In some ways that works but in other ways it veers off into a Batman universe that makes no sense and becomes basically a movie that seems like he's attempting to have Batman seem more realistic to being like a person in our real universe. This is where Nolan fails. The magic and fun of Batman evaporates quickly. A man dressing up as a bat and fighting crime has a humorous element to it that Nolan completely ignores with this incarnation and everyone in this universe acts really dumb about it and their reactions to it make little sense especially Gordon's character. A lot of what Gordon does lacks logical sense and he never seems to really question the mental state of the person he first sees dressed as a bat. He's portrayed like some idiot willing to eventually put complete trust in someone he knows practically nothing about running around in a bat suit. His reasons for being so trusting are never clear. Does he know something everyone else doesn't? Bale's performance was pretty average but not as compelling as Keaton or Kilmer. He also tries to have a Batman voice that sounds ridiculous. The only reason for this film's critical success is that it struck a cord with the comic book fan die hards. It certainly didn't do that impressive box office numbers. Now with news that Nolan is going to present The Joker in a sequel, I see a potential disaster waiting to happen.