by MARK SLUTSKY

Christopher Nolan wants to put the man back into Batman! And who can blame the guy, after the last few movies in the increasingly psychotic, over-glazed, neon-tinted and Schumacher-damaged Batman series? Val Kilmer as the Dark Knight? Who are we kidding here? So it’s definitely wise for Memento director Nolan to reboot the series and start again from scratch, as he does in this summer’s Batman Begins.

In his approach, Nolan is very much the anti-Schumacher. The mood is darker, the tones are muted, the logo has even been redesigned. And he, along with co-screenwriter David S. Goyer, seems to really want to present our caped hero as a human being beneath the cowl, which, if done well, can really do wonders for the superhero movie genre (see the first Spider-Man movie, for example, or the best parts in Bryan Singer’s X-Men series). The point is, Nolan’s taking it seriously, though for the most part, not too seriously.

Batman Begins begins in China, where a young, angry Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), having seen his parents shot dead by a mugger, is rescued from a Midnight Express-esque prison by the mysterious Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson). Henri works for the even more mysterious Ra’s Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe), leader of the League of Shadows—a mystical crime-fighting squad based in a mountaintop temple somewhere in the East. It is here that our young hero will receive his training, both in combat and in, as Henri puts it, “theatricality.” This whole sequence is really nicely done, and it’s kind of a relief that it doesn’t lay the mystic stuff on too thick—and as the name “the League of Shadows” implies, it’s still got a comic book feel.

Bruce soon returns home to Gotham City with the intent to don cape and cowl and clean up that dirty town. There, a terrific supporting cast awaits him—Michael Caine as butler Alfred, Katie Holmes as childhood friend/only good egg in the corrupt D.A. department, Gary Oldman as cop/only good egg in the corrupt police department, Rutger Hauer as the mean CEO of the Wayne Foundation, Tom Wilkinson as a big-time mobster, Morgan Freeman as an inventor with some Bat-friendly designs up his sleeve, and Cillian Murphy as a sinister psychiatrist with a scarecrow mask in his pocket.

And from there on in, the movie unfolds in a not-unfamiliar comic book way. For the most part, Nolan’s direction is steady and smart, although he’s clearly not really cut out for action—the editing is too frenetic and the action sequences are shot way too close. (And the one-liners stink!) Bale, while not a total revelation, is perfectly respectable, and doesn’t make the character too stiff—as can be the danger with superhero portrayals. All in all, the movie’s first half is a lot stronger than the second, which is a bit of an anti-climax. And, of course, the movie lacks the truly glorious insanity of Tim Burton’s first two. But as an intelligent, watchable summer movie, Batman Begins is the one to beat this year.

Batman Begins is now playing

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