Batman! We went to go see it last night, obviously, and I found it absolutely amazing. I’ve always loved Batman, so I’m a little bit biased there. Christian Bale was also my personal favourite teenage heartthrob, so I’m biased when it comes to him too…
Boy, did he look good in that suit, better than anyone else ever…
He just has those perfect super-hero angular features…
But subject and star alone definitely aren’t the sole reasons I found the movie awesome. It was excellent overall. I found it to be well acted, amazingly cast (except for, perhaps weak link Katie Holmes), daringly directed, scripted tightly and plotted intricately.
It was the Batman that Batman was always meant to be.
If you love Batman, you’ll love it. If you enjoy movies with a wealth of fully developed characters played by talented character actors you will like it.
However:
If you don’t like comic books, you may not like it. If you love classic brainless action movies, it will probably be a bit much for you. My athletic 16 year old kid brother thought it was ok, but slow and long.
On the other hand my 23 year old English major boyfriend thought it was mind-blowing.
I personally enjoyed that the character of Bruce Wayne was a fully realized human which, in turn made his alter-ego much more engaging.
Also well done was the use of the real city of Chicago as Gotham city. When I first visited it a couple of years ago, I immediately imagined it as Gotham. All that Nouveau-Gothic architecture, all the bridges and levels and sky-scrappers… definitely gothamesque. All the city needed it needed was a little extra dose of hollywood grime and darkness and WHAM instant Gotham. It was so much fun to see Batman swooping across landscape I actually recognized instead of baroque Burton-esque set pieces.
All in all, if I gave movies stars, I would give this one 10 of em. But I don’t. So forget I said that.