I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen it yet, but I have to say it was one of the best, if not the best Batman ever made!

yeah i just saw it, and with the first batman being one of my favorites since i was 5 i was completely satisfied with it, and thought it was awesome. I was also happy with christopher nolans work, i love memento.

i saw this last night.
best batman movie since the two tim burton directed ones!

so much better than episode 3, the last movie i'd seen in theaters.

worst part of the movie seriously was the "tumbler".

yeah, the buttkicker rumble was a little excessive. But it was the second best batman film (Michael Keaton is first). Really a great film. Go see it.

I've seen Batman Begins twice already, and I think it's not only the best Batman film, but the best superhero film, to date. I don't understand why everyone likes Michael Keaton as Batman/Wayne so much. His part was terribly underwritten in both films. Both Tim Burton Batman films (not to mention both Schumachers) have been origin stories for the villains, leaving Batman/Wayne in the background. Plus, Tim Burton (while usually good at what he does) has no idea how to direct action, and it shows. I think Chris Nolan was the perfect choice to direct this Batman, and Christian Bale was the perfect choice for Batman/Wayne (though his Bat voice was a bit overdone).

Here's a review I wrote of the Batman Begins screenplay a couple months ago: http://www.damdirtyapes.com/r_batman.htm

Most of what I said in that review still holds, even after my viewing of the actual movie.

i think michael keaton was a way better batman than christian bale, the only thing i didnt like about christian bale was the way he talked in the bat suit, his voice was weird, keaton was cool as the caped crusader.

Defintely my favorite Batman, I had this whole thing planned to say here too, but Harris pretty much took the words out of my mouth .

Batman Begins is a great film, undoubtedly.

I think my favorite character from the old films was Alfred. He was probably the most developed (over the course of four films), and always a pleasure to watch.

It is with surprise, then, that I admit the actor with whom I was most impressed was Michael Caine. Michael Caine topped the old Alfred (whatever his name is) in every way. In the Burton/Schumacher films, I was always nagged by the possibility that Alfred and Bruce Wayne had some quirky, unspoken, homosexual ties. And while I would love to finally see a legitimate gay superhero, the question of love between Bruce and Alfred was never answered or developed, and it subtracted from my enjoyment of the movies.

The new Michael Caine/Christian Bale relationship is, in my opinion, great, and exactly what it should be: There's a complex father/son-servant/master-friend/friend thing that bonds them and makes every scene with the two of them attractive. Plus, Michael Caine's accent was pure 19th century bottom-class English chimney sweep, and he had the funniest lines in the movie. Now that I think about it, maybe there should have been some homosexual tension between him and Bruce Wayne.

The one disappointment I suffered in the film: (Bruce to Alfred) "Tell them that joke you know." We never got to hear Alfred's joke. I assume it was dirty, and, coming from Michael Caine, hilarious. "So this chap goes to the doctor, and the doctor tells him, 'You got three balls'." Something along those lines.

psh, christian bale is no adam west. actually, i was blown away. it is definitely the best super hero movie ever made. i wasn't impressed with either spiderman film, hulk, punisher, daredevil, or the first x-men. i also wasn't impressed with the later two batman films with Kilmer and Clooney. If I were going to put my favorite super hero/comic book films in order:

1. Batman Begins
2. Sin City
3. Batman
4. Batman Returns
5. Hellboy

I'm not one to ***** about the comic book story lines, since the only comic books I've ever really been into are Sin City and 100 Bullets. I think Batman Begins works well on multiple levels. It had a great amount of character development, a good twist, Morgan F'n Freeman, good one liners, explainations as to where Batman gets all of his wonderful toys, and of course that ending that gave me the chills (no spoilers.) I can't wait for the sequel.

this was the best batman movie ever i just saw it. i liked how they showed where batman came from because im not into batman at all

Paul, Hellboy? Oh man, that has to be one of the worst superheroes films in my opinion. I do agree with Sin City though, that one was awesome.

Second what Bruce Moose said. Hated Hellboy, loved Sin City. In fact, I'd say Sin City is the most faithful comic book-to-film adaptation ever, as far as both style and content go. Whether or not it's better than Batman Begins... I think they're too different.

I liked Hulk, though, in contrast to everyone I know and every reviewer I've read. I could watch that movie for the editing alone.

I'm a sucker for Ron Pearlman in heavy makeup. Actually, I hated all of the marvel movies, so Hellboy is the last comic book movie I could remember liking. There's nothing particularly brilliant or note worthy about it. It was just fun for me. It's on the bottom of the list because it's not as good as Batman Begins or Sin City. Batman Returns was pretty crappy too, but again, a comic book movie that I didn't hate.

Something I found extremely interesting about Batman Begins was many of the color choices.
For instance, the blue flower. A normal, tunnel visioned, director would have chosen say a red flower or a black flower. Nope, its blue. A very calming, disarming color that turned out to be very dangerous.

I also loved the lack of character CG in the movie. More often then not it was wirework and stuntmen used, which was a very nice refreshing breeze after watching Star Wars and these other comic movies with computer stunts.

I don't know where to begin (seriously, no pun intended) with reviewing this movie. As a Batman fan after the first Keaton/Burton film I had many reserves about this movie. I had no faith in Chris Nolan after the one-trick pony that Memento was and the boring as all hell crapfest that was Insomnia. The man had Al Pacino and Robin Williams and was able to put me to sleep. And anyone who choses Hans Zimmer over Danny Elfman should be badly injured.

I'm a huge Christian Bale fanboy, I loved American Psycho and Equilibrium, and like The Machinist quite a bit. With Batman being his big breakthrough into movie stardom, I was very afraid he was going to be screwed over forever.
It's a good thing, then, that this movie ruled. It ruled better than I could ever imagine. After watching a countless numbers of movies, listening and learning from commentaries, this site, and school, I'm pretty jaded to everything I watch. Movies don't move me anymore like they did as a kid. Sure, I might enjoy one on a technical level or something, but I just don't enjoy 'em like I used to.

When I was watching Batman Begins, I was watching it like a little kid again. The only thing I cared about was how the movie was going to end, not how it was made, what plot devices were used, how is Christian Bale's carreer going to be after this, whatever. I can't remember a movie in the past five or six years that has gotten me so involved in the movie itself and nothing else.

Constantly on the site people talk about how your movie is nothing without a story. I never believed that because even movies who choose story and have a great story over everything else still never got my attention anymore or less than one with good visuals and a mediocre story. This story had me almost instantly, and then, past the end. I never really had any faith in any screenwriter before to be able to do that to me, much less Goyer and Hayter. Still, if it weren't for everyone's performance and Nolan's directing the script wouldn't have been nearly as effective.

Nolan should be hurt again (you know after getting hurt once for passing on Elfman for Zimmer) for not knowing how to direct a fun fight scene. There isn't one fight scene in Batman Begins that didn't suffer from shots that were too close. But that almost doesn't matter because they were all cut way too fast anyway. I kind of want to go into how wrong it is to f*** up fight sequences in a comic book, but it's late. With all of that said, they really didn't matter. I've hated entire movies for the horrible screwing up of perfectly good fight scenes, but, with Batman the story came first. As much as I hated the fight scenes, I actually didn't care because I was so caught up in the story. I can't remember any movie that's made me feel that way.

The happy and excited feelings I got during, and had after, Batman are why I got into movies in the first place. The fact that this one could've made me lose faith in an actor, director, franchise, and movies as a whole, but was able to actually wow me, says a lot. Now, even though I think it should, this movie probably won't make everyone feel that way. That's unfoturnate because I think it's a good enough movie to do so.

My personal opinion after all of that... Bale is Batman. Nolan, Goyer, Hayter, and the five or six bigger named roles should stick around. I can't wait to see what else this Batman universe has to offer.

elliott.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MeGrimlock,

yeah, i was into the lack of CGI as well.

I'm not really into superheroes/comic book movies, but this was one hell of a movie. 'Nuff said.

I wanted to say one more thing about the comic book movies - I know everyone hated The Hulk, but I think the style of that movie is way underrated. The way they shot it and their use of the boxes and the wipes and dissolves truly, TRULY made it feel like you were reading a comic book. The film deserves more credit for that.

The movie was good, but not the best super hero movie ever made. Superman 1 & 2 were better. I also liked X-Men 1 & 2 better, as well as Hellboy and Sin City. I did like the movie though. So, don't attack me for that reason.

As for the person who posted about picking Zimmer over Elfman. Zimmer did not score the film by himself. It was a collaboration: James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer. JN Howard is by far one of the best composers in hollywood. No matter what you think about Zimmer he does have a good dramtic sense. As for Elfman and the first batman movie....he owes a lot of credit to his assistants and orcherstrators for creating the batman sound. Elfman at that point in his career could not even read music. He had no experience at composing for orcherstra (he previously had only composed music for his band Oingo Boingo....yes he had scored a few films for Burton all ready but he either composed music that was similar to Oingo Boingo or actually used Oingo Boingo for the soundtrack).

As for the other batman movies...I did not like Keaton or Clooney as batman....I did however like Kilmer as batman.

you really liked X-1 better? (I'm not attacking, I just find that interesting).

I thought X1 was ill composed and the special effects were very lagging, almost a mid 90's style.
The story was good, but it felt too basic, and there wasn't much too it.

Batman Begins on the other hand, was very well composed. Shots, actor placement, prop placement, EVERYTHING was well thought out and planned (or at least came across that way).
And the special effects were extraordinary. If there was any CG in that movie other then the toxin induced Batman and the train, I did not notice. Everything felt real and satisfying.
And the story was incredible. It wasn't a shallow good guy gets bad guy. There was a time when Batman could have been considered the bad guy from the audiences perspective. Then there was the chain of twists and turns in the plot that kept the whole audience engrossed.

I don't jump on anyone for liking or not liking a movie, unless they're just trolling which you're not. Everything isn't for everybody, so I tend to respect everyone's opinion.

I thought Batman Begins was excellent. I loved the subtle bits of comedy that laced the film, like when he's being chastised for stealing and the box he's stealing comes into view and it's a Wayne Enterprises box, and almost all of Michael Caine's lines. I just thought i'd mention that.