Chris Nolan, Chris Nolan, (out)does everything Sam Raimi can

Rating: 10/10 (19 June 2005)

Batman has always been my favorite comic book hero. I remember watching Batman tens of times, being scared a lot by the Penguin in Batman Returns ( I was 10 years old when it came out ), loving the action sequences of Batman Forever, and then Batman & Robin was released, and as you already know it was of the worst movies ever made. After Batman & Robin, I lost any hope of seeing another Batman movie.
So I was surprised to know that they were making another Batman movie. I was equally surprised by the talents attached to the movie in front of and behind the camera. I thought "this movie might be half as good as the Spiderman movies". The Spiderman movies were in my opinion the best comic movies ever made, and that totally changed when I saw Batman Begins.
First things first, Batman Begins is not a sequel nor a prequel to the old Batman movies. It assumes the old movies never happened. It re-tells the story of Bruce Wayne in a whole different way. It begins by Bruce Wayne as a kid, how his fear of bats began, how his parents died, the reasons of his anger, etc.
This movie is quite the opposite of the old movies. One of the main problems of the original series is that too much attention and screen time were given to the villains, Robin & Batgirl, and as a result Batman was almost a secondary character. That's not the case here. The character of Bruce Wayne is the main focus here, I can even say that Scarecrow needed to be shown a little bit more.
Batman Begins is very dark, which brings it closer to the spirit of the comic books. This movie is definitely not for children. Some of the scenes with Scarecrow are scarier that any horror movie released this year.
Christian Bale was excellent as Bruce Wayne / Batman. I liked the way he changed his voice when he was Batman to scare his enemies more. The supporting cast ( with the exception of Katie Holmes, which wasn't given much to do anyway ), were as good as Bale, especially Morgan Freeman & Micheal Caine.
I definitely think Chris Nolan is the reason why the movie is so good. Instead of making Batman Begins a dumb action movie, he created a character movie, with some action scenes here and there. I've read that some people didn't like the one-to-one fights because the camera was so close and shaky. I think this was Nolan's intention, as we see the fights from the point of view of the criminals. I think the first fight, where we don't see Batman at all, but instead we see the criminals thrown to the left and to the right is an instant classic.
So why do I think this movie is better than the Spiderman movies? Well, as I said, because it is darker, the movie is closer to the spirit of the comics than any Spiderman movie . Box office wasn't in the mind of Chris Nolan when he made this movie. He didn't make a movie for the box office, he made the movie he wanted. There are no romantic scenes to attract the ladies, the movie is too scary for the kids, and the whole first hour is Batman-less. And as the early box office figures show, the movie is making only a fraction of the money Spiderman ( or Spiderman 2 ) made. I'm sure 10 years from now, everybody will say how Batman Begins is the best comic movie made.
So, I highly recommend watching Batman Begins, and let's just all hope that this movie will be decent hit so that we could see a sequel.