Excellent new take on the superhero formula

Rating: 9/10 (25 September 2005)

Chris Nolan has brought some strikingly cool and different visuals to the film. Especially the bits where people are hallucinating on the drugs of the villains is some of the most creepy and stunning film-making I have seen in a while. Christian Bale is great as Bruce Wayne, bringing not just youth (obviously) to the role, but also an eccentricity and rebelliousness that - for the first time in Batman history - makes him ever as interesting as his criminal opponents. But the best about this film is that it completely ignores the plot lines of the previous Batman movies and creates a whole new mythology around its character: Batman is no longer driven by revenge, since the movie lets the murderer of his parents die before Wayne becomes Batman. This also makes sequel-making easier in contrast to Tim Burton's "Batman" that was sort of a "closed system" (Wayne seeks revenge, becomes Batman, kills the Joker who has turned out to be the killer of Wayne's parents, the end).