A guy who dresses up like a bat clearly has issues. Adam West, Micheal Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney have all had the privilege, but Christian Bale has more issues than most- he’s less camp, more convincing- in this earnest Batman prequel, as possibily 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 villian, in a (longish) burst of gratuitous explosions and urban superheroes is not over yet (Fantastic Four still to come!), and this is one of the better efforts on offer.