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Nolan's 'Batman' gets it right

He's been beat up, shot up, set up, camped up, dragged down and bombed out.

But 66 years, hundreds of comics, a few television shows and five major motion pictures later, Batman, that angsty crime-fighting cave dweller, is alive and kicking with great aplomb and KABOOM!

Warner Brothers Pictures 'Batman Begins' The verdict: He's buff. He's tough. And he's something of a drama queen. 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

As the fabulously cool Batman Begins opens Wednesday, it might seem odd that Hollywood's willing to pump more megabucks into chronicling the saga of Bruce Wayne. Think about it — as popular as the character is in the comics (where he's appeared continuously since 1939 and continues to star in at least six serials a month), his last big-screen outing, Joel Schumacher's hacktastic Batman and Robin, was a big fat Batbomb.

Critics hated it. Batfans (including yours truly) hated it. Even George Clooney, who bore the pointy ears in that one, has apologized for killing the franchise (and eight years later, I'm still lobbying for reparations from his ER residuals, because that was some painful stuff.)

But guess what? Even the sad spectacle of Clooney and Chris O'Donnell's Robin running around Gotham in S&M-ish leather suits with rubber nipples (ewww!) couldn't kill this thing.

Batman's back, baby, and he's still brooding all over the scenery.

Why am I bonkers over the Bat? He's buff. He's tough. And he's something of a drama queen.

Honestly, aren't we all? You see, America loves itself some drama, not in the strict classic thespian sense, but in the brooding, emotionally seething, Morrissey-meets-Mary J. Blige's No More Drama sense.

Batman doesn't just eradicate crime — he does it in a costume based on a bat, an animal that literally hangs upside down in dark places until it chooses to squeal and swoop dramatically and get all in your face.

As a drama queen is wont to do.

Sure, superheroes have a dramatic backstory that compels them to don stretch fabrics and propel themselves into grave danger on behalf of the cowering masses: Alien orphan Superman feels an intergalactic burden to protect his adopted planet, radioactively enhanced Peter "Spider-Man" Parker is eradicating crime because he feels guilty over his uncle's murder, and Wonder Woman is a mega-powered Amazon.

But as we learn in director Christopher Nolan's delightfully Gothic yet satisfyingly slam-bam Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is a truly messed-up human underneath that chiseled suit, albeit a messed-up human with an awesome weapons arsenal and a shockingly low fat-to-muscle ratio.

Batman's always been a little weird. He's always stood a little apart from the Justice League crowd. The original Bob Kane DC Comics stories were brooding, and Frank Miller's phenomenally popular revisionist series, The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One, were also somber. He's about striking fear in the hearts of criminals, while never knowing if he can control the fear and insecurity in himself.

Fear is dark. Fear is a Morrissey song.

Like Peter Parker, he's avenging death (that of his parents), but unlike Spidey, Superman and those other cats, he doesn't have any magic powers, superhuman strength or intergalactic call to save the universe. Batman's only internal power is his pain and survivor's guilt, supplemented by the nifty gadgets and armor supplied by Daddy's money.

Yes, he's the world's first heroic trustafarian!

Sure, he's got melodramatic tendencies. All of the Bat-incarnations, including Bale, are working that anti-hero, lone-dude-against-the-world thing, and a nagging secret feeling that they're a big, fat failure. Bruce could just use his pain and cash to party hearty at Wayne Manor with some choice hootchies, which is what the world thinks he does.

But his real mission is to brood, get buff, brood some more, and shut himself off in a dark cave to ruminate and marinate in his anger and noble purpose. And then — POW! — he gets fed up and freaks out on the people responsible.

Yes, Bruce could obviously benefit from a free counseling session in Wayne Enterprises' Employee Assistance Program. But he's not broody and directionless: He has clear-cut goals. He's out there righting wrongs. He's willing to look like a jerk to the rest of the world in order for the world to get saved. And that doesn't always leave time for the niceties.

It's why I dig him the most among superheroes. Superman sometimes struck me as an interplanetary Boy Scout. Spider-Man, at least in his latest, wide-eyed Tobey Maguire incarnation, occasionally comes off like a whiny little boy, and I admit to being ragingly jealous of Wonder Woman, because I'll never look that good in high boots and bicentennial knickers.

But Batman's like us, a grown-up human living in a jacked-up city. That's why I don't want my Batman too happy, sauntering around Gotham like a circus clown dominatrix on Ecstasy (Hi, Clooney!) I want him sullen, soft-spoken, preferably unlucky in love and kinda depressed. Only kinda, though, because he's gotta muster the energy to kick some evildoer booty.

Just compare two of your modern Batmans, Michael Keaton and Clooney. Keaton, from Tim Burton's Batman, dwelled in Gothic shadows, with a handsome face full of hurt. True, he's got a goofball nemesis (Jack Nicholson's sardonic, sadistic Joker), but even the Joker's shtick is borne by pain (that whole facial exfoliant gone wrong) and something truly sinister — he was the guy who killed Bruce Wayne's parents.

Throw that stuff in a boil-in-bag, and you've got All My Shakespearean Children.

Clooney, on the other hand, didn't dwell on the dark. More GQ than Gothic, he was possessed of a playful spirit, ridiculous sidekicks and villains with a penchant for clunky one-liners (Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze) or an enchantress (Uma Thurman's Poison Ivy) with the stilted come-ons of a toxic Mae West and kisses that literally kill. Good thing Robin (O'Donnell) brought some rubber lips with him!

Yes. The fate of the world hinges on a prop from Spencer Gifts. Oh, the horror.

It's not that we don't like a little levity in our Bat chronicles — besides The Joker, I've loved the dastardly amusing Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) and the Trump-ish Max Shreck (Christopher Walken) in Batman Returns, and the spastically sad Riddler (Jim Carrey) in Batman Forever.

But the laughs are never far removed from something horrible. After all, that's the way we like it. We're drawn to the drama. We're drawn to the dark. As the Joker once put it, we love to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.

And there's plenty of devilish delight in Batman Begins. Nolan, who previously directed the twisty indie Memento and the Al Pacino thriller Insomnia, should now be required to go back and re-do all the superhero movies properly, from Superman to the Rocketeer (or as future Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly said in that film, "The Rocka-who?")

Nolan just gets it, man.

I walked out of Batman Begins literally clapping, which is something most film critics would never do, because we're supposed to be too cool for that sort of demonstrative going-on. Fie, I say.

Batman's back, in all of his earnest, parent-avenging, slightly self-serious but always efficient drama and glory.

And there's not a rubber nipple in sight.