As a young boy, Bruce Wayne watched in horror as his millionaire parents were slain in front of him--a trauma that leads him to become obsessed with revenge. But the opportunity to avenge his parent's deaths is cruelly taken away from him by fate. Fleeing to the East, where he seeks counsel with the dangerous but honorable ninja cult leader known as Ra's Al-Ghul, Bruce returns to his now decaying Gotham City, which is overrun by organized crime and other dangerous individuals manipulating the system. Meanwhile, Bruce is slowly being swindled out of Wayne Industries, the company he inherited. The discovery of a cave under his mansion, along with a prototype armored suit, leads him to assume a new persona, one which will strike fear into the hearts of men who do wrong; he becomes Batman!!! In the new guise, and with the help of rising cop Jim Gordon, Batman sets out to take down the various nefarious schemes in motion by individuals such as mafia don Falcone, the twisted doctor/drug dealer Jonathan 'The Scarecrow' Crane, and a mysterious third party that is quite familiar with Wayne and waiting to strike when the time is right.

Batman is another one of those movies that you cannot help but compare to its predecessors. From Tim Burton’s brilliant but dark renditions to Joel Schumacher’s horribly campy and terrible look at the story of the bat. Each incarnation of the Bat has us comparing it to how it has been done and how we think it should be done and this is sometimes unfair to the movies. Batman Begins is a great telling of the story and origins of Batman and is done very well but because the previous two movies were so hideous I have seen a lot of people praising it higher than maybe it should be. Great Batman film, incredible comic book movie, wonderful action/adventure movie are all applicable descriptions of the movie but best Batman and comic book movie ever are going overboard. I still prefer Batman Returns as the best Bat ever as the darkly stylistic looks at Gotham City we wonderfully done and Michael Keaton was just such a good Bruce Wayne. Also the best chemistry of all Bruce’s love interests took place with Catwoman, as the dynamic was better than anything they have been able to do. Don’t get me wrong I loved Batman Begins but I am just not ready to praise it as the best Batman ever.

Christian Bale is an awesome actor and I find it hard to think of anyone else that could have done such a great job as Bruce Wayne/Batman. He filled the caped crusader’s boots perfectly as he gives a darker turn to Bruce and the turmoil of his soul. I think he might have done the best job of playing both the Bat and the playboy as I always thought Keaton was the best Wayne and Kilmer was the best Bat. This is perfect for the movie because while all the previous movies have dealt more with the villains this one is more concerned with Batman himself and it was great they found an actor who could feel both roles so well. The movie also supported more of an all star cast ala Superman rather than one or two big names the movie was chock full of Hollywood’s finest. I think Christopher Nolan’s stop action fight sequences also helped the movie as you really shouldn’t see the bat and this highly criticized (e.g. Bourne Supremacy) style fit Batman better than anything else that could have been done. Go see the movie you will not be disappointed.
4 stars out of 5