Fantastiic Prequel...

Rating: 9/10 (24 July 2005)

Well, maybe not so much a prequel as it is "the way things should have been". While most fans of the "Bat-Man" (as the original comic was titled) know about how his parents were killed, this film finally shows how Bruce Wayne evolved into the Caped Crusader, complete with his own version of "Q" (I always wondered if he created his gadgets himself; now we know that they came from Lucius Fox). Casting was excellent; Michael Caine as Alfred was inspired, and he plays the part both with charismatic charm and with a deep empathy for Bruce Wayne and his demons. I didn't check out the cast list fully before seeing the movie, and I kept telling myself that the actor playing the young James Gordon looked really familiar... has Gary Oldman ever played a good guy before this? Hopefully they will continue to use him in the sequels (of course there will be those!) so we can see his eventual rise to police commissioner.
It was great to see how human the man behind the mask is... that is something that Val Kilmer and George Clooney could not come across with (Michael Keaton did a better job of portraying Bruce Wayne as a tortured soul, but not was well as Bale did).
And while I'm not a Bat addict, wasn't one of the villains named "Scarecrow" in the comic? Wonder if using that in this movie is an indication of things to come.