Dark Knight Rises

  The final act in the Christopher Nolan trilogy of Batman movies. A follow-up to one of the best Batman movies ever, it does an okay job. As a movie about he Dark Knight, it leaves me a little disappointed.

Acting is good enough, all the returning cast does their job, most notably Christian Bale as Batman, Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon and Michael Cain as Alfred. Newcomers Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anne Hathaway, and Tom Hardy as Blake, Selina Kyle, and Bane respectively due a good part and add the mythos of the characters to a new universe.

I know what you’re thinking and yes, Blake is not a character you would recognize. Until the end where they reveal his real first name is Robin, then if you are like me you go, right, sneak in this character integral to Batman this other way. It’s a change, I’m not sure I like it, but it’s different.

Then there is the biggest problem I have with the movie. One giant glaring mistake sitting right out in front. Two words that should never be part of Batman in any form. Batman quit. In Bruce’s words he “retired” eight years prior, after Harvey Dent died. Right. The most determined unwavering character in all comics quits because both his friend and his “girlfriend” died. Right. Sounds more like a Spider-man plot than Batman to me.

So let’s put the Marvel-like story-work aside, Bane is a pretty awesome character in this. He is cold, calculating, and too powerful or the Bruce Wayne who has been hobbling around because of a bum knee for almost a decade. Put a brace on that leg and it seemed that the years didn’t slow down Batman one bit. The first confrontation between Batman and Bane in the sewers of Gotham was memorable, and Batman loses, hard. Bane broke the Bat in spirit. Not to forget, Tom Hardy’s Bane voice, easily replicated by speaking with an english-type accent into a Solo cup is much more pleasant than that horrible gravel filled throat that Batman does. Even though both are sometimes hard to understand.

Did Bane brake Batman’s back and send him to a hole in the ground prison where the only way out is to climb up an insurmountable wall? If Bruce healed up and climbed out to fight Bane later, without immediate medical attention, no, Batman’s back was not broken. It’s a little sketchy how long Bruce was down in that hole, or where it was, or how he was able to get back to Gotham from random place on earth. The scene at the football game was grandiose, but as a person who has watched an NFL game or two, I’m surprised the headset microphone worked as well as it did for Bane.

Selina “let’s not call her Catwoman ever, but let’s give her cat ears every opportunity” Kyle works as a love interest, for Bruce. Sort of. It’s not like another character could handle the duality of Bruce Wayne and Batman without having herself a dual personality.

Overall, the movie is decent enough to give it a watch, it’s a nice send off to this series Batman, even though it is a little weird. Even if it just to see a Batsuit that’s more agile than those stiff rubber looking ones you can’t turn your head in. Though it does look like a giant rubber tire suit in some scenes. You might come away saying they used the whole name someone just to have them reveal their true self later, because people who are Batman fans would figure it out in five minutes. You should watch the movie and close out the trilogy.

The Dark Knight Returns

 Dark Knight Returns is one of the books that seems to be on everyone’s short list of must read Batman stories. Everything about an older retired Batman coming back to take down the criminal low life that spawned up once he went away sounds awesome.

A future Batman story by Frank Miller let’s you know a few things, Batman is going to be one hell of a grizzled old man, he is going to do whatever it takes to make his side the winning side, and Batman is going to act a little crazy while doing it. The art is hit or miss, there are some iconic images in the book, and others look a bit hastily drawn. There is an awful lot of individual panels as well, which is ok, I didn’t get lost in the book, but I’d prefer something that flows more fluid than have too many panels.  It’s not like there is a loss on words either, there is a lot of information given in each of those comic windows.

Back story goes, Batman retired due to the government stepping in on anyone who would dress up and play vigilante, and there may have been some legal trouble. Some of the villains and bad guys wanted to press charges against the heroes, but the police couldn’t arrest a masked man. Actually, it kind of sounds like Marvel’s Civil War storyline, after that happened, and you only see the dark future if Ironman won out. Honestly, I don’t know how that actually ended, the concerns of that universe are for another time.

In the Batman cosmos, some heroes sided with the government, some decided to stop, and others decided to fight. Eventually the government won and out and stop to masked vigilantism, but that didn’t stop the criminal underbelly of Gotham from overloading and exploding throughout the years of Bruce’s secret retirement.

Of course Bruce doesn’t like any sense of that. At the start of where the story starts ten years after that, the former Batman is on a track, in a car racing about. He gets into an accident, but Bruce escaped for the most part unscathed, seems old Bruce still searched for some excitement from time to time.

At one point James Gordon and Bruce Wayne are having a drink to celebrate Gordon’s soon retirement, in which they have a conversation about Bruce having to stop being Batman and what he did to cope with being forced out. Turns out it was alcohol.

Everything in Gotham went to hell when Batman went away, unsettling to Bruce after the years. So when his old friend Harvey Dent snaps back into being an outlaw, albeit a ultimately brief excursion in the story, that’s the catalyst Bruce needs to go and put the cape and cowl back on.

After that, the story goes and doesn’t look back. Bruce brings back the Bat, troubling for some, including Dr. Bartholomew Wolper, a psychiatrist of sorts, to the former Rogues Gallery of Gotham, most notably the aforementioned Harvey Dent and a catatonic like The Joker. In returning to Batman, he also inspires others to stand up for themselves and not take the over growing crime laying down. So out of that comes a new Robin.

  Enter Carrie Kelley, and I will say she may perhaps be the single most important character that Batman saved one night. Without her deciding to seek out and help Batman, Bruce dies face down in the mud during a fight with the leader of the Mutant gang, the most anti-climatic ending this book could have. Instead an overenthusiastic old man running around like he was twenty, “baptised by the rain”, in his words, decides to go toe to toe with a man at least half his age and twice his size, because he had to know if he could. Not stopping to think if he should, which isn’t the type of thing Batman does characteristically, but he is a bit rusty and impatient. Good thing a new Robin spawned into the light at the last second to stop Batman from having his head caved in.

Inevitably two important people see what Bruce has done. The government catches what’s up and President Reagan sends Superman to see what’s up, and to tell Bruce to stop. The other one, is The Joker, who comes out of his mellow comatose like phase and starts killing people again, starting with a late night talk show audience on television.

The conclusion to both of these threads could have been the climax to the book. Batman ends his longtime feud with The Joker permanently, and as an old man fights Superman. And wins.

Batman ending The Joker is a big deal. Even though Bruce doesn’t go all the way and intentionally left his old foe paralyzed, a younger Bruce wouldn’t have ever gone through and done that, or else he would have done so before. Even though killing The Joker is something that has probably crossed his mind more than once. Over the years the thought of killing Joker must have worn down Bruce over the years, added to Batman’s new thirst for vengeance, and The Dark Knight no longer puts up with his adversary anymore. However in the end, Batman gave Joker the upper hand and with a twist of his neck, The Joker finished what Batman couldn’t and killed himself.

The epic fight between Batman and Superman still stands as one of the most iconic clashes in comics. Even the upcoming Batman vs Superman movie is taking some imagery from this. There’s something about Batman putting on a suit of armor to go one on one with The Big Blue Boy Scout, with a plan of course. Even in a weakened state that Superman was, apparently  a nuclear bomb can take Superman down a peg or two, it still took everything Batman had. The fight itself is epic, Batman has to use his allies, as well as the big battle suit to fight Clark. Even though there is a huge foreshadowing moment when Bruce brings up Oliver Queen when Superman comes with a government approved cease and desist order. A balding Emerald Archer comes out of nowhere to snipe Superman with a kryptonite arrow. It’s not enough to kill Clark, that’s not what Bruce wants, but it is enough to turn the tide of the fight in Bruce’s favor, and he beats Superman, and Batman wants Clark to know that.

In the end, Bruce knows he can’t do everything as an old man, and resurrecting Batman started inspiring people to follow in his footsteps. During the fight with Superman Bruce fakes his death after giving Clark a pummeling,  and goes underground where he and Robin can round-up those who want to be taught by Batman to take a stand against crime. It’s a good ending you don’t see coming.

If you’re interested in this, as you should be, and don’t like reading, which makes you lame, DC decided to make this an animated movie. Instead of condensing the story down to eighty minutes, they divided it up into two parts. Not cutting half the story was a good idea.

Peter Weller lends his voice to Batman here, and is fantastic. Something about Robocop as an older Dark Knight hits a weird spot. The rest of the voices aren’t to shabby either. Although I will say I thought David Selby’s Commissioner Gordon would break out into a southern drawl at some point, he never did.

The look and the animation is superb, this is my favorite DC animated movie to date. DC took one of their all time best stories and did an excellent job adopting it into another form of media, which as we all know can be super tricky.

If you consider yourself a Batman fan, and for whatever reason haven’t read or watched The Dark Knight Returns, you really, really should.

 

The Dark Knight

First time I saw the sequel to Batman Begins, I thought this was a pretty good movie. The second and third times I was more engrossed with it. Every other time since then I tend to pick up on things I hadn’t noticed before.

Christian Bale does another good job as Batman, except that stupid voice he does. Michael Cane as Alfred is a nice choice and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox is great. Aaron Eckhart as Two-Face was no slouch either.

Let’s be real for a moment, the best thing in this movie is Heath Ledger’s Joker. Hands down most memorable character, best dialogue, and best scenes. There was plenty of good reason for giving Heath an Oscar the year it came out.

As I said, the more I watch the movie, the more these the tiny little things take place that make me go hmm.

For one the interrogation scene between Batman and Joker. Joker has Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes kidnapped and tied up in two different sections of Gotham and Batman wants to know where Rachel is. Because she’s just that important, and Batman knows Joker has two people tied up, and likes to play games. So when The Dark Knight beats the answer out of Joker, he gives Batman both addresses, but switches the names around. Bruce books it to save Rachel, but what really happens is The Caped Crusader ends up rescuing Harvey, barely, creating Two-Face in the process and Rachel doesn’t make it.

Which should not happen. Batman should know what the Joker was doing, realizing his nemesis was trying to lead him astray. But no. Batman walks right into where The Joker wanted him.

You might say, well this is a newer less experienced Batman and he didn’t know. I might say Rachel is a stupid character and wasn’t going anywhere so they needed a way for her to make an exit, and try to have an impact somehow. I think what this did was plant a seed for something later.

Overall it’s a great movie you should see. Some things might get weird if you skip Batman Begins, like what’s Bruce’s deal with Rachel. Other than those small details, better question is why haven’t you seen this yet?

Batman and Robin (movie)

Well. The last of the nineties Batman movies that started out so promising, and in the last showing, ends with a lame whimper. You know which one I’m talking about, because this is the one where they thought it was a good idea to put nipples on the Batsuit. Robin had them too, like he needed one more, hey I’m my own man too dammit Bruce things.

It’s not even like I can pin point the one thing wrong that takes the film down either. It looks like everyone was bored making the movie. EVERYONE. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze is full of uninspired ice type puns. A man who once played a cold uncaring piece of machinery, whose sole purpose was “death to humans” was more believable than “ICE to see you”.

Uma Thurman is incredible. She was great in Pulp Fiction and a force in Kill Bill. However her poison Ivy is about as clever as an actual plant. Like yes, of course you’re going to get Batman and Robin argue over who is going to “get” you. And yes, the older statelier George Clooney’s Batman figures it out first. Which the dynamic duo come to their senses OFF screen. So that reveal when Robin comes to her like he’s on Ivy’s side, but really not, because wax lips! Its like well, yeah, that is a solution. Not an interesting one, but it moved the plot along.

In the old television series, Batman would thwart a criminals poison because he knew ahead of time to drink a few glasses of buttermilk before going out. At least in the episode you saw Batman drink an awful lot of milk in the batcave before, marking that he had an actual plan. Not, well let’s just skip that part over for more ice related jokes, no one will notice.

Bane has his theatrical debut here as well. Acting like a brutish thug that doesn’t speak and protects Ivy. Not like he is in the comics, or anything. All the characterization in Batman & Robin is as if the writers looked at comic covers. Not actually read them or opened them up, just the covers, or maybe some poster art.

Sometimes I’ll get the idea of watching this again. Then Mister Freeze’s goons ice skate around that museum and Batman shows up and I just get disappointed. A quick scene or two passes and the Batman pulls out his BAt credit card for a charity auction and I don’t even know why anymore.

I’m not saying anything new. This movie is bad, unfunny, and poorly executed. Don’t watch it. Even George Clooney apologized for it.

Batman Forever

Sometimes, the third time is not a charm. This isn’t the worst batman movie, but it did follow the better of the two Tim Burton directed films. New director, new direction, news Gotham, and new Batman was well, different. And hey, let’s throw in a Robin origin, and let’s skip his time being a young ward and make him eighteen so we can have that unearned student-mentor conflict right off the bat.

Individually, there’s nothing wrong with the main actors. Val Kilmer Is an okay Bruce Wayne/ Batman, Chris O’Donnell’s Robin is mediocre, and feels forced. Nicole Kidman as the psychologist love interest to Bruce is never as good as it could be. Then there are the villains. Jim Carey did what mid nineties Jim Carey was gonna do with the Riddler. He’s over the top and maniacal, and try’s to steal every scene he’s in with that green suit and red hair. To this day, I still don’t understand the red hair. No other Riddler is portrayed like that, not that I’ve seen anyway. It’s mind bogglin’. Finally Tommy Lee jones is an awesome actor, I like him I other things, but he’s not what the previous two movies were leading up to. That being a Billie dee Williams Two-Face. Jones acting against the monster that was Jim Carey he has to become this ever approaching beast that comes close to going over, but just kind of ends up acting silly.

The serious tone of the first two films are almost all gone, and what little dark the Dark Knight had before now has weird neon lighting. Instead of letting Gotham have this eerie sense of delusion, seclusion, and corruption. It’s now looks like a cartoon version of the Las Vegas strip.

The story is lame. Batman is an established character, so the Robin origin is kind of thrown in there because that character wasn’t there, but instead of having Robin as a young teenager, he’s an adult. Like, they could have just made him Nightwing, it would have made just as much sense. And they try an origin story with The Riddler, but he comes off as less than fantastic, and borrows some of the same details as the previous movie’s Catwoman. Edward Nigma’s boss doesn’t like him, and Bruce Wayne is less than thrilled with his invention, so Edward wind up going crazy.

With those to sub-plots intertwining each other Two-Face’s origin gets demoted to a video on a t.v. screen, a bit uninvolved in anything. Two-Face has no place in the movie, except he hates Batman, because he didn’t save his face from acid, and Harvey is the one that kills Dick’s parents, because Robin needs a reason to join Batman.

Plus, don’t forget, the super forgettable love interest to Bruce. Dr. Chase Meridian, who has Bruce as a patient. inevitably goes and dates Bruce. Because their needs to be a love story angle somewhere.

Batman Forever is the point where the nineties Batman movies went from being worthy comic book movies, to terrible hollywood movies based on a television show someone took the wrong impression from. Watch it, only if you have a weird curiosity for this. Also, this is the movie where the nipples on the batsuite started, so yeah.

Batman Returns

The sequel to the 1989 Tim Burton Batman is better than the it’s predecessor. Michelle Pfieffer as Selina Kyle slash Catwoman is a far more interesting love interest to Bruce Wayne slash Batman than photojournalist Vicky Vale. Danny DeVito’s Penguin is as grotesque as you think it should be in a Tim Burton movie, and the movie has Christopher Walken as Max Shreck a second antagonist to Catwoman along with Batman. Christopher Walken is pretty much a real life comic book character already.

Origins of the Penguin aren’t to out-of-place for him. Oswald Cobblebot’s wealthy parents reject their disfigured baby, and send him down Gotham River one dark cold night in a basket. He floats down and grows up in the sewer rescued by Gotham City Zoo penguins.

Catwoman’s beginnings are a little on the dumb side. Selina Kyle is a secretary to Max Schrek, who is a real jerk to her. One night Selina’s in the office late and discovers something about her boss. When she confronts him, Max throws her out a window. Remarkably not dying from the fall, cats come and lick her wounds and transform her. Maybe they were mystic cats from magic land, the movie is a little light on those details.

One good thing about Batman Returns is, Batman actually fights one of his foes in this movie. The Joker and Penguin pose no real physical threat to The Caped Crusader, but Catwoman puts up a worthy fight. She, at one point, even gets close under the Batsuit and gets her claws into Batman’s side.

Then there’s this point in the fight were Batman is on his back and Catwoman climbs on top of him then says something and licks his face. As a child I thought that was weird, As an adult I think, yeah, no, that is gross.

Plot gets a little crazy. The Penguin runs for mayor with the help of Shreck. That gets up ended when the brilliant part of the Penguins feud with Batman leads him to take over control of the Batmobile, which doesn’t make The Dark Knight flinch at all, and instead when Penguin is prattling on about how stupid the citizens of Gotham are, Batman makes a record of the speech. Of which Bruce Wayne waits until Cobblepot makes a public speech and patches in the recorded audio, moving a CD back and forth, much like he was scratching a vinyl record. That bit seems out-of-place, and I’m seventy-nine percent sure they knew you couldn’t do that back in 1992 as well.The Selina Kyle romance part is alright. As Catwoman she allies with the Penguin to get rid of The Bat, and as Selina Kyle she dates Bruce Wayne. Selina gets double crossed by Cobblepot, as if that wasn’t going to happen, and at a Christmas party finds out Bruce Wayne is Batman during a dance with him. She then decides not kill him because Bruce has business deals with her boss. After that she decides to take it easy on Bruce and focus on Shreck, the man who tried to kill her.

In the end I thought this was a good movie, I still watch it every few years or so. If you liked the first Batman, I can’t imagine you havent seen this already, and if you have not seen either, you don’t really need to see the first one if you know where Batman comes from.

Batman 1989

The 1980’s was a good year to be a fan of the bat. The Dark Knight Returns, Long Halloween, and Year One all happened that decade in comics, and in 1989 Batman left his mark on the big screen as well.

Twenty five years later, to the exact day if the Internet Movie Database is correct, of course I’m talking about the Tim Burton directed movie Batman starring Michael Keaton as Batman/Bruce Wayne and Jack Nicholson as The Joker. I remember the first time I saw this film, it was a family pizza night in 1990, and we had invited my grandparents over to watch it with us because my grandfather liked Batman, so much so as he was the one to tell me there was no Robin in the movie because he had died in the comics recently. Thinking back, there might have been some wires crossed and maybe he thought Dick Grayson had died, not Jason Todd, but still, that was way more information than anyone had given me about current comics before, so I’ll give him a pass.

Being the seven-year old I was then I hadn’t seen or read many adventures of The Dark Knight, but the few episodes of Adam West as Batman I had seen I thought were enjoyable. My kid self thought the movie might be similar, or have some of the same tropes the show had. Even up to that night I first saw Batman, I had seen very little of anything about the movie, and by a small margin, knew it existed. Maybe I saw the Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson in full costume, that’s about it.

I remember enjoying the first time I saw the ’89 Batman movie. The rubber Batman costume looked better than the tights of the past, and now it looked more like comic book Batman. The Batmobile didn’t look like a modified version of a car Bruce Wayne had, it was a whole new design made for this new Batman. The Joker make-up was better than Caesar Romero’s, but I think what I didn’t like about the old make-up was Cesar Romero never shaved and it was literally white paint over a mustache, which I always thought looked foolish. It was a definite more serious approach than the almost satirical approach done in the 1960’s.

Now that I’m older and watched the movie multiple times over the years, my enthusiasm has gone down a bit. I do still like the movie as a whole, it is not exactly a Batman origin, that’s there in a flashback. I don’t like how they define an origin to The Joker, if he is there as an antagonist, in anything Batman, Joker can just show up, no need for unnecessary back story.

Michael Keaton does a fine job as both Bruce Wayne and Batman. There’s one scene in particular, when Bruce Wayne meets The Joker for the first time in Vicky Vale’s apartment. Bruce Wayne gets a little out of character into crazy territory and utters the line “You want to get nuts, c’mon let’s get nuts.” other than that, he’s a solid Dark Knight.

Jack Nicholson is up and down. He eats the scenery out of every scene, which is all well and good. There are a few moments where if you took the make-up off, it would just be a scene with Jack Nicholson and not the character Joker.

The rest of the cast is alright. Commissioner Gordon is forgettable, Robert Wuhl as the reporter in Gotham trying to make heads or tails of this Bat-Man phenomena is ok, as unneeded as it is. Kim Basinger as Vicky Vale never really does a good job. She gets moved along because of the plot. Jack Palance as criminal boss Carl Grissom, who double crosses Jack Napier is, well Jack Palance. Billy dee Williams as Harvey dent is great, and so underutilized, I don’t think I’m the only one who would have liked to have seen the alternate universe third movie where Tim Burton and Michael Keaton were still attached and Williams gets to play a major role as Two-Face, but I guess that was never meant to be.

Gotham City seen in the movie looks like it could be set in about four square city blocks. Either the theater, city hall, or a chemical plant is in every outdoor scene seemingly, and looks like you could even see all of them if the camera spun around to let you see the whole city.

All that being said, there are cases in which Batman which seem out-of-place.

The morning after Bruce and Vicky have a date, Bruce is hanging upside down on a contraption sleeping. I know it’s to show you that he’s taking his bat-persona too seriously, but it is a little ridiculous, especially to do that after a date with a woman he supposed to find attractive, and is still there not more than twenty feet away, in his bed still sleeping.

Alfred, for as good as he is in this movie leads Vicky Vale right into the batcave. It’s like she showed up at Wayne Manor, asked to see Bruce and Alfred just nodded and took her through whatever maze it takes to get to the batcave. Right to a more bewildered than angry Bruce at a giant bat-computer. To be fair Bruce had a conversation with Alfred about telling Vicky, but never told Alfred one way or the other, Alfred just assumed Bruce had told her. Which could have turned out real bad if Miss Vale decided to not like Bruce.

Near the end when Batman is flying his Batplane and captures the deadly Joker-toxin filled balloons, he just releases them filled with deadly Joker poison into the night. What happens when those eventually land somewhere? Not to mention Batman in a showdown with the Joker on the ground, and Batman still in his plane opens fire onto a Gotham street, which a moment ago had a crowd of people running around grabbing cash before the Joker started releasing Joker venom. Not only is Batman firing a gun like that out of character, but the fact Joker took pulled a hilariously long-barreled pistol and took down Batman, in one shot is at least a little eye brow raising.

None of these observances are new in the two and a half decades since the movie came out, and honestly they don’t even bother me any more than anything the 1960’s television Batman did. They are just weird inconsistencies with the vision I have of Batman is in my head. And in the end that’s okay, because that’s where new ideas come from.

All in all, I’d say give the movie a watch, it did more good for Batman as a whole than the negatives that are in there.

Batman Begins

The Batman movies that started In 1989 went from being a more serious take on The Bat to an almost re-imaging of the Adam West Batman tv series in four movies. The last one Batman and Robin almost killed off the Bat movies altogether, and there weren’t any for a good long time.

Until someone had the bright ides of taking Batman back to where it all began. I don’t know if Christopher Nolan knew he was in for a whole Batman trilogy at the start, but the first one wasn’t half bad.

Taking Bruce Wayne from being a man, to The Batman hadn’t been told in a movie yet. And barely glimpsed at in other media. To be fair, Batman Begins still skips a lot of the journey, but does take place where the interesting things happen.

Christian Bale is a decent enough Bruce Wayne, his Batman is a little to be desirable, but after George Clooney it was awesome.

Having Scarecrow be the main villain at the outset was a nice choice, but if you know Batman, then Ra’s al Ghul being in the movie meant there was going to be something else going down behind the scenes.

The movie itself is as you would expect. A pseudo year- one Dark Knight introduction. It doesn’t really change anything to the creation of the Bat mythos that might cause a fan to get upset, like silly costumes or terrible dialogue. It just does Batman.

Begins throws in a few new characters into the mix, Ducard played by Liam Neeson is the one who trains him in the League of Shadows, who turns out to be the main antagonist all along. Surprising as I was, as soon as it happened I should have seen it coming. Ra’s al Ghul is a clever villain. The second “new” character was Katie Holmes character Rachel Dawes, Bruce’s childhood friend, and secret crush.

Ducard was all about deception, making Bruce think Ra’s had died and the League of Shadows disbanded when Bruce refused his offer. It’s a good twist. A lesson learned, you can’t get rid of the League of Shadows, and their reach is beyond what you could ever comprehend.

However.

Rachel Dawes is a terrible character. If this had been a new movie with never before seen characters, I would’ve been ok. The existence of a MaryJane to Peter Parker equivelant for this universe’s Batman seems wholly unnecessary. If she is integral to whatever story they had, the storytellers could get there in a better way. I just want to poke her with a stick and ask “why are you even here in this movie”. Rachel doesn’t do anything of importance. There are at least two women better suited for Bruce’s attention. Even if you want to say, yeah, Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle have known each other since they were kids, Catwoman is a way more interesting character than Rachel, and they have the perfect chance to have Talia al Gul in the movie setting up their whole love/hate relationship for a later movie. No. Instead we get someone new, dull, and not worth their side of the story.

Other than that, I thought this was a good movie. Michael Cane as Alfred was great, and Gary Oldman as James Gordon was an excellent choice.

Depending on whether you think Bruce Wayne should know who killed his parents, certain scenes might be a little maddening, but Batman Begins tries going to the core of who Batman is like no other theatrical release has. Not only does Batman tackle two big villains, but the major a crime syndicate and it’s lord. A trifecta of justice if you will.