God bless the British. They got Batman right.

Rating: 10/10 (16 June 2005)

Batman Begins - The beginning chapter of the Caped Crusader(played spot-on by Christian Bale)'s exploits in Gotham City. Chalk it up to the Brits to finally get a Batman movie right. Now don't get me wrong. I liked elements of Batman and Batman Returns, but for all of the beautiful sets and bangs and whistles, Batman was a 2-dimensional supporting character in his own films, and we never saw much of anything that drove him to don the costume and battle evil. Batman needed a beginning, and now he has it. The first hour is spent delving into Batman's past as Bruce Wayne as a child gets the crap scared out of him by bats, and watches his parents get murdered right in front of him (I actually cried here, to my surprise). It's dark, gritty, and emotional. We see Bruce get trained physically and mentally. He learns to harness his fear and use it. Fear as a weapon is a recurring theme in the movie, a key tool of Batman that was somehow left out of the other movies, and the old 60's show. Batman then returns to Gotham and vows to put a stamp on the corruption and evil.
Christian Bale IS Batman. He is so subtle but dark and bold, easily the best of the Batmans. Micheal Caine is witty, warm and father like as Alfred. Morgan Freeman makes a nice addition as well as Lucius, the man that gives Bruce most of his equipment. Gary Oldman is excellent as Gordon, the last good-cop in Gotham, a character ignored for some reason in most of the other movies. Katie Holmes isn't exactly a stand-out player in the movie, but she has some moments.
Gotham is full of villains, but none of them (thankfully) are allowed more screen-time than Batman. Liam Neeson plays an interesting mentor character as Henri Ducard. He's far more three-dimensional than most mentor characters in this sort of film. Cillian Murphy is undoubtedly my favorite of the villains as Scarecrow. He's scary, disturbing and just plain crazy.
Overall, this is the most fun, dark, gritty and most human of the Batmans. It's not all slick and well-oiled. My initial impression of the new Batmobile was "okay..." but It's grown on me. It sort of like a cross between a tank and monster trucker's wet dream. The chase scene with it on the rooftops was incredible.
There are no buildings that look like cathedrals no one would build, like in the more Gothic Batman's 1 and 2. There are no gadgets beyond what someone could create in real life. But it has strong character development, and a good screenplay (and the few one liners spouted here and there are not groan-worthy), and a dark, gritty nature that is so good it just has to be fattening. My one wish would be to see what this new fighting style created for the movie looks like. The shaky camera captured a gritty down and dirty nature, but I would still like to see what the moves look like. But that's a small complaint compared to the rest of the film. this gets an A