not as good or bad as people rave/rant

Rating: Null/10 (10 August 2005)

This movie has been commented on over 1600 times. I'll try to add something different to this.
Good:

darker theme, more realistic superhero

intriguing and deep philosophical struggle of revenge against evil and at what cost to extract that revenge.

BatMobile becomes Humvee mobile.

Michael Caine as the butler, great performance

Gary Oldman as Constable Gordon, even better performance. Almost unrecognizable.

ice fight scene

Bad:

all the other fight scenes are so close up that you get a feel that you're in the action which is kinda neat. But to do that for every single fight except for the ice scene is a bit repetitive. With all that action choreography we'd like to step back to see who's getting hit, by whom, and how. Not just a flurry of fists. The first time was neat but please, don't repeat the same tricks over and over and over again.

Katie Holmes. Ugh. Tacked on romance felt really out of place here. And her acting is obviously weak here.

Liam Neeson. Not much emoting here, even when his back story should have allowed him to show more bitterness or rage or anger. He makes it come off as aloof and even bored.

with such a serious and dark tone, it's actually hard to empathize with the main character and I didn't find myself rooting for Batman as much as I was rooting for Peter Parker in Spiderman or rooting for Wolverine in X-Men. Batman is portrayed as a real human being here, but he is so sterile and bland that it makes it hard to identify with him.

overall, maybe 7 out of 10

definitely does not belong in the top 250 of all time but it IS a good movie nonetheless and definitely worth seeing on the big screen.

Don't wait till the DVD comes out. You'll never make heads or tails of the fights on the small screen.