Upon returning home, he and his family Butler Alfred, played by two time Oscar® winner Michael Caine (The Cider House Rules), create an alternate life for him to run around helping Gotham City rid itself of crime i.e. as Batman.

There is also a subplot with his child hood friend Rachel, played by Katie Holmes (The Gift), who is now an assistant DA for Gotham, and Bruce has a huge Bat-thing for her. Of course, all the bad guys want her out of the picture, cause she's snooping around their business too much.

I thought the picture was very so-so, when it came to material. I thought the bad guys were very cliched and inept as always. Of course, lower level bad guys have to be inept to make the criminal masterminds seem like just that.

There were a couple scenes I did really like. I liked how the picture showed the process of Bruce becoming Batman. When he first visits sergeant Gordon, who later becomes Commissioner Gordon in the original comic books, Batman silently slips out of the room, but Gordon looks out the window and finds him trying to climb up the fire escape. I thought this was very amusing, in that, we never see Batman still learning to make a graceful exit, until now.

In the same sequence, Batman makes this gorgeous leap of the top of the building, only to come crashing down on his a**. Why? Cause he didn't have any mechanisms to help him fly yet. In comes the character of Lucious, played by Academy Award® winner Morgan Freeman.

I thought Katie Holmes was horribly flat. She had no magnetism what so ever. Maybe she's good looking, I don't know. She's not my type. I don't get attracted by girls in their 20's who get engaged to 50 year old men. Her time on screen was a big dull dud. She was just another damsel for Batman to care more about than others in the city.

I thought Christian Bale's Batman was quite different than any Batman we've seen in a movie thus far. His Batman would YELL at the bad guys, attempting to intimidate them, rather than the "boo" and whisper like Michael Keaton presented in the first two Batman pictures of the late 1980's.

At one point, I did wonder how this project managed to lure three Academy Award® nominees (Watanabe, Neeson and Tom Wilkinson), a one time Oscar® winner (Freeman) AND a two-time winner (Caine) among its cast. It must proves, even though a famous actor receives what's supposed to be the most prestigious award among their craft, it doesn't keep them from doing movies just for the money.

Overall, I think "Batman Begins" is worth seeing. It completely wipes away the first four Batman pictures from the last 18 years and starts over. I can definitely embrace this new franchise, even though its debut was less than awesome. At least it didn't take place in a gay disco club like "Batman Forever" and "Batman and Robin."

Benn - Where's the Humanity?

Thank you Warner Brothers for saving the Batman franchise. Now all you need to do is to find all copies of the last Batman movie, a movie we do not speak of, and burn them all, and Joel Shumacher while you're at it. Batman Begins is a very entertaining movie that resurrects the franchise and a character that, in my opinion, is the best comic book character for movies.

"Batman Begins" begins in Asia where Bruce Wayne, played by Christian Bale (Reign of Fire,) is in jail fighting criminals in a rampage, vengeance spree to try and ease the pain of the loss of his parents. He is introduced to man who wants to save him, Ras Al Ghul, played by Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai,) who teaches Wayne everything about turning revenge into justice, including crossing the line into vigilantism. Wayne refuses and destroys Ras Al Ghul's temple and heads back to Gotham City to fight the crime boss Carmine Falcone and Dr. Crane a.k.a The Scarecrow.

Director/writer Christopher Nolan and writer David S. Goyer reintroduce a much more brooding and believable Bruce Wayne/Batman character that is much closer to Tim Burton's vision of the original movies, and Bob Kane, the creator of the comic book. They brought back the pain that is in the Bruce Wayne character that is not apart of Peter Parker's character in Spider-Man. It is a character that is suffering because of not only what has happened to his parents but to what happened to him after his choice of being a vigilante on the right side of the law. Christian Bale does a supper job of embracing the writing and is a very believable Bruce Wayne.

As beautiful side babes go, I thought Katie Holmes was quite acceptable. There was nothing really to her character, so to fault what she did is silly. Her character was ho-hum, and there is only so much you can do with that. I will say that I did not like her final scene after she found out that Bruce is Batman. She says some stuff about waiting until Gotham no longer needs Batman to love Bruce Wayne. That's just plain crap, and annoying writing, but again not the fault of Holmes. The only thing that is her fault is marrying that spoiled man Tom Cruise, but that is for another story.

I also had a problem with the Ras Al Ghul character. I thought he was a good guy, vengeful, but good guy. I thought that his character in this was over the top, even for a comic book. I did love The Scarecrow character. It was nice to see them introduce a new villain.

I enjoyed this movie and am glad to see the franchise start anew. I can't wait to see the sequel, especially if they use Mark Hamill as The Joker. It is just good that they re-started this great character and brought the franchise back to life.