Achievement

Rating: 10/10 (8 July 2005)

To turn a cheesy hero comic into a serious film with serious and dark characters is an incredible achievement not really surprising from the director of Memento and insomnia. Katie Holmes suits the part well however it is a little typical in terms of female heroins in comic book adaptations which is a shame as I am sure she is a very capable actress. Christian Bale as usual plays his part brilliantly bringing his own uniqueness to the character, Equilibrium, American psycho. The fight scenes are badly filmed and unclear but this was done on purpose I feel as the badly choreographed fight scenes from previous batman films which look like they belong more on stage than on screen would not fit this film at all, the batman depicted here who flies in grabs an enemy and is gone within seconds really supports the idea of the character using fear against foes.
The main villains were excellent which is not always the case when trying to adapt comic characters to film but the scarecrow is really very cleverly put to screen. Its a shame that there's not really a lot more room for a sequel without going forward after the whole bat girl and robin thing but perhaps they could squeeze one in before the joker in the initial batman film.
If you like the original more sinister batman films and are a fan of clever comic book adaptations you wont want to miss out on this.