Second Best of the Series

Rating: 7/10 (5 July 2005)

It still doesn't beat Tim Burton's first film, but "Batman Begins" is better than the rest of the Batman movies to date. Christian Bale makes a terrific Bruce Wayne--he may be the best actor to have played him so far. And top-tier actors like Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine, while maybe not greatly challenged by the material given them, still make the most of smaller roles.
My biggest problem with this film was its structure. The first 20-25 minutes of the movie are actually quite boring; there's so much plot exposition and back story to work through that the film grinds to a halt trying to slog through it. However, once Bruce Wayne begins his actual transformation to Batman, it's as if someone flicked the power switch on and the movie takes flight. From that point forward, it's a lot of fun, dark and brooding, as Batman should be, but also full of that cheeky brand of humour common to comic books.
There are many times when I wish the fight scenes had been more visible; director Chrisotpher Nolan shoots everything so close and edits everything so fast that you can't really see what's going on, a shame since there are plenty of opportunities for sensational fight choreography. But there's enough in this movie to like to make criticisms like this seem like afterthoughts.
Grade: B+