A movie that delivers, on various levels

Rating: 9/10 (20 July 2005)

There were two reasons that urged me to watch the movie. First of I was hoping for a darker and more serious adaption of the material like Tim Burton delivered with his extremely enjoyable Batman movies. But even more important for me was to see how Christopher Nolan would manage the gap between delivering a crowd-pleasing blockbuster without loosing his personal and artistic influence. Shortly said, in both cases the film is a success. Although the film follows the typical structure of a superhero movie, the development from Bruce Wayne to Batman is the part where Nolan's influence is clearly visible. From the interesting visuals in the icy mountains that clearly remind you of the stunning panorama shots from "Insomnia" and even in the main themes like revenge, the definition of how to act right or wrong and the diversity of emotional and rational behaviour. Although the blending between this first half of the movie and the later action-filled moments is quite hard, the moral drama inside Bruce Wayne is not blown away by the superb effects. The action is not as over the top as in most summer-blockbuster-cgi-crap and the fighting scenes are fresh with a more realistic approach of how Batman would fight. The most stunning but a little too long action piece though is the ride with the superb Batmobile. The cast is great with only one exception which is Katie Holmes but due to her limited screen presence this fact does not matter that much. At 140 minutes this is not a short movie of this caliber, but Nolan proofs that he is a master of story- and character-development and there is absolutely not one scene that I found overly long or boring. There are slight moments of irony and mild humor in the Bruce Wayne scenes that fit very well and keep this movie from being taken too serous while giving credit to the materials comic origin. It's been a long time since a big summer blockbuster like this has worked on so many levels for me and although this movie might have some minor flaws, it is more intelligent, tighter, darker, better filmed and of course more serious than most comic adaptations and action films of the last decade.