Holy bat-disappointment!

Rating: 5/10 (25 June 2005)

I've been a Batman fan almost literally all my life, and was naturally looking forward to the latest incarnation of one of the greatest modern myths. The combination of talent and story sounded intriguing - sadly, all I found was an over-long, self-important muddle.
Naturally, director Christopher Nolan was perfectly within his rights to dispense with the traditional grungy Art Deco palette used for Gotham City, but why go instead with such an uninspiring and clichÃ©d sci-fi hodge podge instead? Making Gotham real rather than surreal also runs the risk of making a man who likes running around in a bat suit seem a tad silly. Since 'The Wizard of Oz' in 1939, films have had to work hard to establish an internal logic to their reality; Batman Begins' seems unsure of what its is. Can Batman really fly? Is this the not-too-distant future? Is it an alternative reality? Who knows?
Certainly, nobody's suggesting Nolan should have slipped in a Batusi to lighten the mood, but the darkness of his vision might actually have benefited from some lightness. Tim Burton's choice of Michael Keaton to play the main role in his films was, of course, very controversial, but in choosing a comedian he instinctively recognised that donning a bat suit to fight crime is both noble and faintly ridiculous, something Christian Bale is too po-faced to put across.
Batman has always been dark, sometimes brutal - sometimes brutally funny. But one thing it has never been is just another super hero story, which this film - like the Spiderman and X-Men films before it - is.