Movie vs Prequel

Rating: 7/10 (9 July 2005)

I have to say that being a Batman fanatic I was very excited to hear that there was to be an addition to the series which has delivered so consistently in the past. When I actually went to see this movie, however, I had extremely mixed feelings about it. The way I decided to explain it to people is that it is an excellent movie by itself, but a terrible prequel. The all-star cast, including Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, and Liam Neeson, gives a performance nothing short of amazing, and even the new faces did not come up short in portraying their allotted characters. The story was entertaining and there were certainly aspects of the movie that would keep all types of viewers happy. In this sense I enjoyed the movie by itself very much. However, as a prequel this movie fails miserably. Now bear in mind, the fact the fact the Bruce's mother drops roses instead of popcorn in the third installment still bothers me... so this was no walk in the park. It is such a gross distortion of the classic Batman story that it is impossible to place it on any kind of time line with the other movies, which is of course what a prequel is meant to do. In fact there was not much of the story that wasn't unaltered of left out completely, and in this sense I could not stand it. I still highly recommend this film to those seeking great entertainment, but to old school Batman lovers, beware.