'Batman Begins': Dark Knight, not Caped Crusader

"Batman Begins" intends to banish all thoughts of Tim Burton, nippled Batsuits and Holy Bat Anything.

And to a great extent, it succeeds.

In their stead is a dark, stylish and dead-serious movie that doesn't so much reimagine Batman as remythologize him. This is the story of the Dark Knight, not the Caped Crusader.

Warner Brothers Pictures 'Batman Begins' B+ The verdict: Batman is back, with a stellar cast and a more serious approach. Director: Christopher Nolan Starring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Ken Watanabe, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy Run time: 140 minutes Release date: June 15, 2005 Rating: PG-13 for intense action violence, disturbing images and some thematic elements. See showtimes Babble Royale! Palm Beach Post critics Hap Erstein and "Flick Chick" square off over Batmania. On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate "Batman Begins"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

It's been eight years since Joel Schumacher's "Batman & Robin," the fizzled finale to a franchise that began in 1989 with Burton's visually imaginative, dramatically banal "Batman."

As you might expect from the man who made "Memento," Christopher Nolan isn't interested in aping the antics of Jack Nicholson's manic Joker or Danny De Vito's campy Penguin or Arnold Schwarzenegger's woeful Mr. Freeze. He wants his Batman movie to be about Batman, not the assorted villains. The solemn tone, the lack of Joker-ing around, is a bold directorial move that not every viewer will think is a good thing. And a somewhat cheesy finale is a problem from any perspective.

The Batman — make that, the Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) — we first meet is damaged goods. Traumatized by a childhood incident involving — yes — bats, and riddled with guilt and anger after witnessing his parents' murder, Wayne flees halfway around the world, ending up in a Third World prison.

Rescued by the mysterious Ducard (Liam Neeson), he trudges to a temple at the top of the world and is taught the secret skills of the League of Shadows, a vigilante/terrorist group led by a character named Ra's Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe) that's been around for centuries, waging war against human corruption. They claim the scalps of Sodom and ancient Rome, among others.

But Wayne doesn't like the idea of fighting evil with evil and rejects the League's Kung Fu hustle. Returning home to Gotham City — a marvelous concoction that's part 1930s Chicago and, with its fanciful skyscrapers, part 2005 Atlanta — he decides to fight evildoers his way.

Gotham City is the place to do it. Everywhere you look, there's someone doing something nasty, be it meat-fisted crime lord Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson, perfect), deranged doctor Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy, perfectly creepy), or Wayne Enterprises greedy CEO Richard Earle (Rutger Hauer).

On the side of good are Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman in the William H. Macy role), the only honest cop in town; Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes), a determined assistant district attorney; Alfred (Michael Caine, wonderful), Wayne's faithful and fatherly butler; and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman, also wonderful), a high-tech expert banished to some forgotten corner of Wayne Enterprises by Earle.

Nolan and his co-writer, David S. Goyer, haven't approached their movie as a means to a franchise (though there's a big fat hint of what could be next at the end). "Batman Begins" is very much a stand-on-its-own effort, more Ridley Scott than comic-book pop.

The picture repeatedly stresses the human side of Batman, reminding us he has no superpowers, just skill, wits and an ability to manipulate fear, which is one of the film's themes. A lot of attention is also paid to the accoutrements of the legend Ñ how the suit, the cape, the car, the cave came to be. Like Bale, who brings a solid physicality and a psychological intensity to the role, these familiar aspects are more rugged than they've been in the past. The Batmobile (it's never referred to as such) is more bulked-up Hummer than cool sports car, the Bat Cave a real bat cave with obvious traces of bat guano.

So much is good about "Batman Begins" that it's unfortunate what's bad about the movie comes at the very end, leaving viewers with the feeling that the film is less entertaining than it actually is. The end-of-the-world (well, at least of Gotham City) ending is sadly understaffed. All smoke and no mirrors, with Holmes and a plucky kid apparently the only ones really in danger (and too easily found by Batman and everyone else when needed for dramatic tension).

"Batman Begins" may not be a Batman movie for everyone. Though Freeman and Caine get some good lines, there's not much joking around, and the action, though plentiful and well-staged, isn't what the movie's about. Rather, it's about the birth pains of a superhero, with the emphasis on those pains as much as on superheroism.