The best Batman ever... is still the cartoon. But this still beats nearly all the live-action versions.

Rating: 7/10 (29 June 2005)

On the surface, there's nothing really wrong with "Batman Begins" that replacing a sorely miscast Katie Holmes wouldn't cure (perhaps she's in the cast because they felt they had to have someone American there besides the excellent Morgan Freeman). It's very dark, very thoughtful and ideally cast almost from top to toe, with Christian Bale making a fine Bruce Wayne and Batman, Michael Caine giving the movie some genuine warmth as Alfred (and pretty much stealing the movie, along with Freeman's Lucius Fox), and it never treats the audience as anything less than adults.
But what keeps me from exulting over this as much as many others is director Christopher Nolan's approach; his desire to keep it real - most reflected in the new Batmobile; goodbye stylish long gas-guzzler, hello compact all-terrain vehicle which, frankly, is quite ugly - makes "Batman Begins" ultimately sacrifice excitement in favour of grittiness, and the movie pays for it in the third act. The first two-thirds are enough to make it better than all the other live-action Batman movies except Tim Burton's first effort, for sure - but the exploration into Bruce's psyche and what made him become the Caped Crusader, complete with training at the hands of a Ramirez-meets-Obi-wan Kenobi type played by Liam Neeson, comes at the expense of the villains (notably a terrific Cillian Murphy).
While there's very creepy imagery, and the decision of Nolan and primary screenwriter David S. Goyer to not allow the villains to upstage the hero is a wise one, there's such a thing as space - "Spider-Man 2" proved that you can develop the bad guys without sacrificing the hero, and that really needed to be done here. That, plus some very non-thrilling action moments, means that you're admiring the proceedings without getting truly pumped up. (And the less said about the disappointing score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, the better.)
This is still very much worth seeing, but the hands-off, clinical approach means the 1992 animated series is still the Dark Knight to beat.