Batman begins - what a pleasant surprise

Rating: 8/10 (20 June 2005)

I went to see batman returns not because of a burning desire to compare this offering to the previous ones, or because I'd seen memento and wanted to compare the directorship of that film to this or indeed because I was a closet 'comic book guy'. I went because of the air conditioning, for once summer had arrived in the UK and the only escape was the cinema.
I'm very glad I did. The plot was formulaic and the dialogue, at times, was clichéd, but what fabulous acting, what gloom, what characterisation. Christian Bale was beautiful and magnificent as batman. He oozed charisma and even when he was sharing the screen with the heavy weights such as Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine he held his own superbly.
I never thought that the excellently camp portrayal of Batman by Adam West could be usurped, and indeed the wet fish interpretation by Michael Keaton didn't even come close. But I believe West now has a worthy successor in the form of Bale.
The film was jammed packed full of stars - great to see Reutger Hauer, Liam Neeson and Gary Oldman all playing characters counter to their normal screen personas. I would guess that this was a deliberate and very clever technique to cloak motives and twist the formulaic plot.
The only bat in the ointment, so to speak, was Katie Holmes, she lacks the charisma, gravitas and beauty to add anything worthwhile to a film like this - whenever she appeared on screen she gave the appearance of an actress that had accidentally strayed on to the wrong film set from a second rate chick flick or a high school 'dude' film.