Good but Not Great

Rating: 7/10 (23 January 2019)

18 June 2005. I didn't go rushing into this movie, my wife made me. Thus, as soon as I could I was looking for things I didn't like about Batman Begins and naturally I found plenty of problems with the movie.
First off, let me say, I think that the whole switch to quality production and the look of the movie was great (though I still prefer comic adaptations to be more comic-like such as Sin City). The basic storyline and the substantive backbone of this movie is superior in terms of past Batman versions. This was a good movie but it had its major problems.
The first thing that made me uneasy was the very first image of bats (that were not realistic). The second thing that made me uneasy was the use of the flashback technique. Personally for a movie like this, it would have flowed much better in linear, chronological order so I didn't have to bounce back and forth, I wanted to see the beginnings of Batman along with Bruce Wayne as he experienced it. There was so much development, that unfortunately, the length of the movie made it prohibitive to really fill out the details of Bruce's personal growth. I found the editing jumpy and uneven, disorienting, I felt there were too many gaps in Bruce's experiences..
Mr. Wayne found this rare flower so easily, climbed the mountain was easily. His martial arts training was a pale version of Elecktra's or for that matter Zorro with Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas or even Karate Kid.
Mr. Waynes transformation into billionaire playboy didn't seem natural and just happened suddenly from one scene to the next.
The martial arts, there really wasn't any scene with anything that could be considered quality fighting - it was all a blur. My hats off to Jennifer Garner and Angelina Jolie both of whom really took their fighting practice to heart. The car chase scene again was pure copy, especially the two shots where the cars are lined up in a formation pattern, aligned for the chasing cars that really appears artificial.
Gary Oldman didn't have the script lines that would allow him to really breakout in this movie - as the comic relief, there was the possibility to really shine.
Cillian Murphy was the most intriguing character in this movie, one par with Sin City's Elijah Wood's performance.
Some of the dialogue, some of the scenes just didn't work for me...the kingpin being so easily ensnared by Cillian Murphy's doctor role. The fight in the beginning of the film with the League of Shadows just seemed too little and too much at the time. I would have settled for the whole building to blow up and Bruce Wayne simply escape, but instead we get this not to believable beam falling to end matters and the fight scene just didn't seem to merit the supposed ability of the master.
The first time we get to see the Batmobile jumping roofs (but the first instance the audience doesn't actually get to see the first jump).
The strength of this movie like Spiderman is that we get to experience superheros but vulnerable in a real, genuine way.
I enjoyed this movie but not as much as others. It was substantive and reflected the essence of Batman. But in its actual presentation, there were too many holes for me to enjoy it completely. Seven out of Ten Stars.