Batman Begins (again) ...

I've been a fan of "the Batman" for years. I read the comics, I loathed the live-action TV series (yet still watched every episode and the god-awful movie), and I relished the first movie. I, along with thousands of other fans, bemoaned the inexorable decline as the movie franchise fell into disrepair and mockery.

When Marvel started churning out films based on their properties, I (along with thousands of other fans) wondered if this could be the catalyst that would convince the Warners to pull their heads out of their asses and treat their two main comic franchises (Batman and Superman) with some fucking respect.

Then we got a picture of the new Batmobile, and everyone freaked out in unison. It's a tank. This is going to be ridiculous. But I wasn't worried, I took a look at the "Tumbler", and breathed a sigh of relief. It was believable. It looked like something that someone who owned a company that created military weapons and vehicles might come up with.

I'm digressing, but suffice it to say that Christopher Nolan (director of Memento, as well as Batman Begins) got it all right. Every last bit. Well, except for Katie Holmes, who's only redeeming quality was nipples apparently liberated from the Batsuit in the last movie. This was an origin movie that explained it to the novices, stayed true to the comics for the sake of the fans, had the in-jokes and details that otaku like myself expect, and then set up the sequel in the best way possible.

I've heard people complain that you can't see anything in the fight sequences. Horseshit. You can see everything just fine (but I've got a large amount of visual/mental bandwidth), but it's supposed to be disorienting; it puts you in the place of the criminals. Likewise, I wish that they had replaced the useless Katie Holmes with Harvey Dent (even if they decide never to have him become Two-Face), and I wish they had used Talia (Ra's Al Ghul's daughter) as Wayne's love interest given that they introduces her father, but those are nitpicky things that didn't destroy my love of the movie one bit.

I don't want to give away any of the plot or secrets, but I will say that it was a nice touch to fudge the credits to protect the plot. And since I know all the diehard fans have already seen the movie, I'll say this last part and be done with it ... it looks like things are being put in place to make a film version of what many (though, not myself) consider to be the best Batman plotline ever written to screen by the third movie of this series: A Death in the Family.

What do I consider to be the best storyline? Well, I own all the comics from the series, as well as the fantastic novelization by Dennis O'Neal, and I'd have to say that I would personally wet myself if they ever produced a film version of "Knightfall". But I know that will never happen. Then again, I'd just about given up on seeing a Batman movie that didn't feature gigantic codpieces too ...