Holy spectacular recovery, Batman!

Rating: 9/10 (21 June 2005)

Just like it happened in Episode III, I entered the film theatre with caution, since I vividly remember the diastrous Batman & Robin 8 years ago which put the franchise on life support for such a long time. I have heard about the great reviews it got, but I never believed it until I saw the movie. (I saw it the day it came out in the UK, on 16 June).
And, like Episode III, this movie truly blew me away. The critics are there for a good reason and I believe they're correct. Batman Begins is a TRULY great film. It has a very good story that is comprehensible and clear to everyone, not just fans of the comic book (90% of the public, most of whom have not read the comic strips, applauded as the credits rolled). The movie has a dark theme, but is coherent and logical, in contrast with the nearly black-and-white Batman Returns and the showy, neon-filled Schumacher pics. The cast is perfect, with the highly versatile Christian Bale was born for this role, and is the best Bruce Wayne/Batman since Michael Keaton, showing the two sides of the person in equal amounts. Liam Neeson shines in a familiar role as his mentor and trainer and the rest of the supporting cast make characters that are realistic and multidimensional. The special effects are great, and they serve justice to a juicy storyline. The Batmobile (some assume to be the prototype of the black car in 1989) is a wow and its scenes are worth a watch. Christopher Nolan is surely made to direct this film, and does a better than even Burton in making the movie dark, realistic, and also appealing. And YES, the hero has a bigger spotlight than the villains, and Bruce Wayne is portrayed interestingly in the same style of the Spiderman films.
The only two things that make this movie short of being flawless is the extreme close-ups of some fight scenes (you can't tell who's hitting whom or what) and fans of the original series complain that there are more villains in this movie than the previous films and none of them, save Ducard and the Scarecrow, have much screen time, which might cause some confusion.
Despite the fact that you won't see the Batsuit until about an hour after the film starts, it is well worth the wait. The 140 minutes of the film will never let you out of your seat, not even for a single moment. To make things short, it is the best Batman film of all time, even better than the 1989 original.