jasond

So I saw the newest Batman movie, and it rocked. The movie is great. It knows and understands Batman. Batman does not have Bat-credit cards and pop-out ice skates. He's the guy who could never get past his parents murder, who directed his hate, his guilt and his thirst for vengence into a drive for justice. And that's well shown here. While the fight scenes tend to be shot with lots of quick cuts (a style I think that tends to be a tad overused in movies today), they come off as brutal and savage. This isn't Charlie's Angels wire-fu, with people getting back up after being kicked to the head, this is Batman slamming someone in the ground and kicking them in the ribs to make sure they don't get up again.

The actors all do a wonderful job. A friend of mine said Christian Bale would make a great Bruce Wayne after we saw American Psycho a few years back, and wow was he right. Morgan Freeman could read the phone book and be entertaining. Gary Oldman is a great Gordan. Cillian Murphy is delightfully creepy as Scarecrow AND as Jonathan Crane. Michael Caine is good, but I did have a little problem with his accent. I've seen too many versions of Alfred with a high society accent to switch to a Cockney dialect threw me off. Not horribly, but it just seemed weird, ya know?

The weak link of the whole thing is the "romance" between Bruce and Rachel, some people blame Katie Holmes, but to be honest I just think it was the fact that a romance didn't serve a purpose in this story and the character should have been Bruce Wayne's good friend Harvey Dent (setting up for Two Face later on).

Still, one of the best movies I've seen this year, and the best Batman movie yet.