Dull, except for the horrifically bad dialog

Rating: 4/10 (16 June 2005)

I hate to say it, especially in light of the raves, but Batman Begins is a bore. This thing needed a few more rewrites (or at least one by a good writer) before it was set to film. The basic story is very well thought out, the origin of all Batman and all his iconic and psychological paraphernalia, but the dialog is horrible and the visuals lack style. Now I know that director Nolan was trying to set Batman in the "real" world, but does the real world have to look so dull? More importantly, do the people have to all talk like zombified, robotic idiots? Even the fatass morons down I see buying candy bars with food stamps at the Safeway utter more colorful dialog than is offered in this movie. There is a complete lack of any wit, spontaneity, or intelligence in the dialog. The conversational dialog is stiff and--oddly enough for a film striving for realism-- archly cartoonish. And there are more lame, unfunny scene-ending bon mots in this thing than a 1980s Roger Moore James Bond movie. Oh, it's just freakin painful! If they couldn't hire someone who could write decent dialog they should have at least hired a director who knew when to CUT out bad dialog; this would have been much better as a silent film. And on top of that, the thick rubber bat costume STILL looks stupid. It is really jarring to have all this drab, "realistic" set design with a guy in a fake-looking, goofy rubber suit running around in it. This thing makes thin Christian look like a black chipmunk with its ears clipped.
I'm surprising even myself with this, given the high expectations I went into the film with, but I much prefer Tim Burton's Batman to this boring, predictable junk.