My long,rambling review of Batman's return to the screen...

Rating: 5/10 (19 May 2006)

It seems that newcomers to the Batman series thought this movie rocks and fans of the comics thought it sucked.I'm sorta in between.Batman Begins is definitely not the worst Batman movie(''Batman and Robin'' is,of course!)but it certainly isn't the best.Here is Batman movies in order of greatness: 1:Batman(naturally)2:Batman Forever3:Batman Begins5:Batman Returns6:Batman and Robin(ughhhhh).This is not the best of them all,by far.It was alright but....well for one thing the Liam Neeson character was rather,well....stupid.I remember how it was all hyped upabout it having Ras al Ghul but he's only in it for like,10 minutes.Iremember a story book version where the Ducard character became Ras al Ghul....and where's Talia?Screw Katie Holmes,it should have had Talia as the love interest(anyone else here remember the Denny O'Neil/Neil Adams Ras Al Ghul stories?But I do have to congratulate Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow.Not since Jeffery Combs has the Scarecrow been so delightfully scary...Crhristian Bale was ALRIGHT but that's about the end of the film's goods.The Batmobile flat out sucked and the changes to the comic book stories(I really don't see very much Batman:Year One in this....)were almost intolerable to some one who's devoted the better part of his life to reading them.The Scarecrow's defeat was awful,needed The Joker REAL bad.An introduction to the character of Batman needs The Joker,considering he is the earliest of Batman villains still in syndication(besides Hugo Strange,to a certain extent)and all in all nice try.A big waste of money considering the quality(Tim Burton had little,if any,CGI and his Gotham City and Batcave and all that fancy stuff looked much more realistic).I do prefer the 89 verion.5/10