BATMAN BEGINS

(June 2005, U.S.)

Let's all play a game and pretend that BATMAN RETURNS (1992), BATMAN FOREVER (1995) and BATMAN AND ROBIN (1997) were never, ever made! It's an easy game to play. Most people have been playing it for more than a decade! The people at Warner Brothers can only WISH they could play it!

So, having pretended that people like Danny DeVitio, Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, George Clooney, Umma Thurman and Arnold Schwarzenegger did not totally turn the Batman franchise into a disgusting campfest, we now return the caped crusader into the hands of a very capable filmmaker; Christopher Nolan, the man who gave us MEMENTO (one of the best films of the last decade). Batman is now darker, angrier and more vengeful than ever, the way he was always meant to be in the eyes of creator, Bob Kane. Christian Bale plays him with an intense seriousness that has never been seen in the character of a superhero before. Gotham City is now just Gotham and it no longer looks like an array of Hollywood sets and stages. It's filmed on location in Chicago, which in a way, is perfect when you consider the violent history of criminal activity the city had during the years of early 20th century probition.

This is a Batman you can actually feel for. We always knew that Bruce Wayne became Batman as a result of seeing his parents murdered in front of him. We now get a deeper sense of how it truly affected him and how he uses his grief and sense of vengence to inflict true terror into the hearts of Gotham's criminals. He also knows how to love, serve and protect as a true superhero is supposed to.

The only flaw I can find with BATMAN BEGINS is the presence of Katie Holmes...period! I need not say anything more about that!

Favorite line or dialogue:

Batman: "Where were the other drugs going!?"
Flass: "I never knew! I swear to God!"
Batman: "Swear to ME!"