Since his parents were murdered when he was a child, Bruce Wayne has made it his focus to bring those who live a life of crime to justice. After training with a dangerous group of assassins, Bruce returns to Gotham City and begins his path as the masked vigilante Batman, seeking to rid Gotham of its criminal element -- beginning with mob boss Carmine Falcone and his enigmatic ally, Scarecrow.

It's been years since I'd seen the Dark Knight trilogy of films, and in rewatching Batman Begins, I found it to be even better than I initially remembered it. While it certainly isn't the best comic book film of all time, it is a real entertaining movie and one of the best superhero origin films out there. Perhaps the pacing isn't as great as you'd like, as the film does have a lot to do in establishing Bruce's past, training, and his initial outings as Batman, but it does a good all-around job of enlightening you in where Bruce is in his life and what he has gone through, while also introducing viewers into a new and more realistic take of Gotham than in previous films of the character and his mythos. Christopher Nolan's take is more gritty than the more campy version by Schumacher and even the Burton films, making for probably the most realistic superhero universe to date (barring perhaps The Batman). And the casting is on another level -- I had forgotten just how good Christian Bale is as both Bruce Wayne and Batman, and the supporting cast, especially Caine, Oldman, and Murphy, knock it out of the park. Highly recommended, even to those who aren't big comic book fans; it has enough realism for most audiences to get drawn into the story.

Content Concerns: Quite a bit of action violence, although it is rarely graphic or extreme. There's also some mention of drugs being passed about through the underworld of Gotham. There are 14 total uses of vulgarity (a mixed bag of milder language such as "h-ll," "d-mn," and "-ss," as well as 1 use of "g-dd-mn").

(July 14, 2023) ( )

1850

Long and boring. ( )

An orphaned millionaire learns to fight crime.

When I went to see it for the first time, I had huge expectations, and it blew them all away. Sure, like any sensible person, I like The Dark Knight better. But this one has become my basis of comparison. ( )

Possibly the best of all the Batman pictures, though still so choc a bloc full of all the action movie cliches that I couldn't see raising this one above a three star rating.

Bale, Freeman, Caine all did credible jobs but the actings skills of some of the other characters were a bit on the thin side. Especially whoever they got as the forgettable love interest. Also some of the props for Gotham seemed a bit on the Japanese horror movie set circa 1957 side. With CG so cheap nowadays you'd think nobody'd be building model sets anymore. Or perhaps I'm just being too finicky, anyway it was certainly a decent enough way to kill two hours over a few beers. ( )