One of the best movies of the year

Rating: 9/10 (16 June 2005)

Quite simply I had built a lot of expectation for this and was afraid of a let down. Despite such high expectations, this film greatly exceeded them! This is a true film, taking time to develop characters, motivations, conflict, depth. Bale turns out to be the best Batman to date...but more importantly the best Bruce Wayne which is truly what makes Batman what he is. The entire cast is spot on, perhaps with the exception of Katie Holmes who is just too cutesy for the hard/idealist DA role, not bad but not as convincing as everyone around her. The action is spot on and well staged/shot. The effects are perfect as they are seamless in a Forrest Gump sort of way, they never draw your eye towards them, they simply enhance. Most of the film appeared to contain little CGI as well so right out of the shoot that synthetic CG look is absent, a good thing.
The treatment still requires suspension of disbelief because after all we are still talking about a man in a costume....but since this could never be realistic the best way to sum this up is that the film is extremely plausible within the world it has created and never once did I find myself in disbelief or mocking anything I saw on screen. Performances carefully came close to the that edge between believable and over the top, but with such nuanced actors they never went over that line, making them extremely powerful and controlled characters.
Spoiler: The hallucination scenes and use of fear as a weapon are very intense for children. Make no mistake. With all of the hoopla over how dark Star Wars was, it holds no candle to this one. Hallucinations consist of fear induced by gases...people see rotting flesh, maggots, demons, zombie like creatures, fire breathing horses, etc. As an adult these scenes were amongst the best but be forewarned that children under 13 should probably not see this as these scenes are meant to represent harsh nightmares.
Also the ending was somewhat expected knowing this is planned as a trilogy however it also was so perfectly done, I applaud how not "in your face" this scene was in terms of setting up the next one, contrary to how Spiderman 2 ended.
9/10, 1pt off for Katie Holmes and couple of one liners almost required in comic films (although none of them made me cringe like other movies).
Awesome.