Don't Believe The Hype

Rating: 3/10 (18 June 2005)

They should have called this movie Ninja-man. Seriously...why is Batman in this flick? At best, this is Hollywood hackery with all the loose ends tied up in a tidy little convoluted package. It takes Batman - who is such an obvious fantasy hero living in a fantasy world - and tries to spread him over real life. The result is embarrassing to behold. Act I feels like a tasteless film noir riff on The Last Samauri. Act II is downright insulting - every single major player loses common sense to an almost surreal extinct. Act III is basically Die Hard IV: Die Batman Die.
Now, this is coming from someone who loved, loved, loved MEMENTO and INSOMNIA, as well as Tim Burton's BATMAN and BATMAN RETURNS.
As bad as BATMAN AND ROBIN was - at least it wasn't pretentious.
The soundtrack sounds like it was cobbled together from various faceless, forgettable Action Movie Trailers. It is utterly soulless...but that matches Bruce Wayne's (non)character. Wayne is supposed to be clever - a scientist! Here, he comes off like a frat boy with a silver spoon in his mouth and a chip on his shoulder. Instead of appearing mysterious, he is inexplicable and unaccountable if not simply an utter dolt. Batman Begins exhibits a one-dimensional Bruce Wayne unconvincingly leading a double-life. At times, he borders on non-dimensional.
I've got some advice for the producers of this film - re-title this thing The League of Shadows, cut out your half-baked "Batman" subplot, compose an actual score and you'd have just another Bad American Action Movie rather than a Pretentiously, Embarrassingly "Serious" Comic Book Bastardization.
To be fair, this movie does have about 15 minutes of interesting material. I'm sure it makes for a great trailer. But the rest is Bat droppings.
Sorry fans, I really wanted to dig this flick. I hate to rain on the parade of praise rolling in for this thing. I'm glad so many of you enjoyed this and I wish I could share in your enthusiasm. I'm just trying to warn readers like myself to lower their expectations.