Starts well with intelligence and invention but then descends

Rating: 6/10 (21 June 2005)

It had some original stuff that displayed intelligence and thought with regards to his suit, car and weaponry. It did try to dwell on Bruce a lot more and convey some of his darkness but I found towards the end it became very Hollywood-ised. Sometimes filmmakers try to over complicate things and this was a good example.
I don't know why they can't have a simple bad guy with a simple plan, why do they have to be so elaborate a plot leaving a growing feeling of inevitability that by the end there will be some big explosions, building destruction, lots of flashing lights and Batman will prevail.
The inability of seeing the fighting was immensely frustrating. I don't think I saw him actually land a single punch. It seems a fight scene would be imminent and the makers would speed up the camera, ramp up the bass on the sound, scatter the scene with crunching thuds and smacks but then forget to actually choreograph a fight. Maybe believing that if we heard the thuds and saw some activity on the screen that the audience would imagine the rest and think 'wow, what a scene'. I'd much rather have two or three clearly thrown punches or kicks than 1-2 minutes of whirling cape, bangs and crashes and people falling to the ground.
It's a shame that they re-launch the franchise in a blaze of 'this is going to be darker and different' which it certainly starts off doing before descending a little bit into Hollywood banality. Why not have the courage to really shake things up, have the bravery to maybe end it badly (taking T3's lead) or just not conform to the normal formula.
Showed promise, had some clever stuff and made more of an effort than some in the franchise but still nothing to rival Batman:Mask of the Phantasm as the best batman ever made in my opinion.