Great movie...with one major flaw...

Rating: 7/10 (21 June 2005)

After Joel Schumacher managed to kill the Batman franchise with his horrendous two outings, Christopher Nolan managed to successfully resurrect it, with the excellent Batman Begins. The acting and the remarkably nuanced characters are, together with a solid screenplay, the movie's strong points. Bale is perfect as the Caped Crusader, and the supporting cast is exquisite, with Cillian Murphy almost stealing the show as Dr.Johnatan Crane/The Scarecrow. The 'reality' based script, aimed more at adults than at kids, and Nolan's decision to limit the CGI to the minimum, give the movie a very real, dark feel to it. The only thing that keeps BB from scoring a higher vote is that Christopher Nolan can't do action. And in a superhero movie, action is inevitably a central element. It's not that there isn't enough action, there is plenty, but it's honestly rather bad. The frantic editing tries to save the day, but it actually makes things worse (this movie has the worst editing I've seen in quite a time). It seems as if the action scenes, especially the fights, were shot almost randomly and then assembled from scratch in the editing room, with very poor results... In my opinion, what made Episode III so visually outstanding was not the flawless CGI, but the fabulous action. Here it keeps this otherwise remarkable movie, from being the masterpiece it could have been.