Dare to brave an honest review of this?

Rating: 7/10 (21 October 2005)

I tried to like this movie, I really did. Some parts just really drove me up the wall. Like how Bruce Wayne was unable to kill a worthless thieving hobo, but only seconds later able to whomp all the ninja's asses who he had befriended and trained with for months and months, then obliterate their dojo (possibly incinerating most of them in the process). This was I agree pretty minor but still irritating. Then the movie went along well until the cop car/bat-mobile (can I call that a bat-mobile?) chase scene. If Batman is such a defender of the public why would he needlessly take out half a dozen cop cars? This part just seemed like a lame excuse to put in some Nascar-esquire explosions. Then the movie continued alright until the climax. The "twist" plot seemed nicely forced, and Gotham City felt ridiculously smokey and fake, like I was on a Disney park theme ride. The whole train sequence was also extremely over the top.
Katie Holmes was of course abysmal as expected. I liked Bale as Bruce Wayne but his Batman voice and style got old real fast. This was a decent movie, but it's getting an crud load of praise. I think people are just gaga over it because compared to the last two batman sequels, this is a masterpiece. But seriously people try to look at this movies in a vacuum if at all possible. I give it a 6.5