A guy who dresses up like a bat clearly has issues. Adam
West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney have all had the privilege,
but Christian Bale has more issues than most hes less camp, more convincing
in this earnest Batman prequel, as possibly the best Bruce Wayne since the
chiropteran superhero first appeared in 1939. The movie asks you to forget all
the previous incarnations, and is in fact an independent franchise.
Nevertheless, the famously grim and relentlessly vengeful delinquent eliminator
swoops quite entertainingly around a distressed Gotham City
despite, maybe because of the absence of a really diabolical villain, in a
(longish) burst of gratuitous explosions and urban superheroics, with a touch
of the Ninja for good measure.