The League of Extraordinary Gentleman was disappointing, so when Nolan was offered Batman Begins with David Goyer to pen the script, shivers of fear ran down my spine. Would the Batman franchise fall further into despair thanks in all to Joel Schumacher’s raping of the series?

Batman Begins is not an action movie, but a drama with elements of action and romance. It focuses greatly on why and how Batman became Batman, from the psychological to the physical tower of strength he eventually realises. It also covers aspects of the technology he uses, how it’s developed and their original purpose, and even how the Bat Cave came about. It’s a very gutsy and brave fresh start for a new series of Batman films.

Christian Bale leads the cast, and performs admirably as Batman. He throws on a gruff voice, and plays a mean, threatening individual dressed for halloween. As Batman, he was a good choice. As Bruce Wayne, however, I thought he was rather weak. The transission between his voice from Bruce to Batman may be accounted for by the lack of throat lozenges.

The support cast includes Michael Caine as Alfred, who I thought was a bad choice. Rather than a Butler, I saw him as someone who like to dress up as a Butler at weekends, whikle during weekdays he sold the fruit & veg down Hackney market. Morgan Freeman is given a small role, which doesn’t do him any favours, and the same is true of Rutger Haur and Gary Oldman. This film, correctly, revolves around Bale and his psyche.

What I loved about the film was how gritty and real it felt. For once Batman didn’t feel like a supernatural or mutant anti-hero. The anti-hero element is here in bags, and I loved it. The down to earth approach to taking Batman from his humble beginnings as Bruce Wayne the orphan is a masterstroke and convinces you that Batman could be real, because everything he does someone else could do. Perhaps even yourself. It’s a convincing story, and offers a convincing nemsis in the form of Liam Neeson as Gaul.

The lack of action, or any wow factor was quite disappointing. This was supposedly a big budget feature, but most of the money seems to have been spent on creating the virtual city and modest special effects. There’s nothing extravgant, or grand about the environments. Gotham is no longer a dark, gothic city but one full of colour and reality.

I don’t mind that, but most people probably wanted to see Batman fight a known, rather than unknown, villain. With a sequel pretty much guaranteed and ahint as to who will be the second villain, the first one as at least succeeded in making things that bit more interesting.

Overall the film is not as good as it could have been, with the pace not pulling the audience along fast enough at times. Sometimes it does drag on, and does become dull after we’re hit with the repetition of Wayne and his fear and who blames for this parents death. It’s done to death (no pun intended) until you can’t stand it anymore.

For me the Keaton and Burton’s Batman is better, for offering far more entertainment and some cracking performances, and offering a very comic book affair. Batman Begins is definitely a close second providing an alternative, more real taste of who Batman is. Not bad at all.

Verdict: Refreshingly different, but not quite the best of the series. Batman without the frills