Missing Michael Keaton

So we saw Batman Begins. I thought it was pretty good, which is better than just good. It mostly held my attention, although there were several things wrong with it. First, the positives. The old famous actors were good. The DA character was very obviously modeled on Sam Waterston's Law & Order character, in haircut and mannerisms. The Sergeant Gordon moustache was neat.

The negatives: Katie Holmes looked like she was 12 and I couldn't believe in her as a DA. The Crane/Scarecrow guy also looked like he was 12 years old. The League of Shadows concept was (I think) a not-great idea that got over-conceptualized by the writers until they thought it was a good idea. It reminded me of those Escapist comic books thought up by Michael Chabon. Some degree of interest but forced into existence and over nurtured with pseudo intellectualism that ultimately is just frustrating.

I missed Michael Keaton, who I think was better as Batman under the suit than Christian Bale. I could hardly stand the way Bale sounded when he talked as Batman. It was as if his IQ took a 50 point hit when he put on the pointy ears.

There was also not much fun in the movie. I think the Tim Burton movies lost some degree of cool points after the bad Batman movies (the ones with Jim Carrey and Schwarzenegger) came out, even though TB was not responsible for those.

This movie was made for people who had seen the old batch of movies, and in some ways it was an improvement. When I think of the 10 or 11 year olds who will see this, howver, I think the pseudo-sophistication will just confuse them.

So anyway, see it if you want to. It is pretty long, but kind of interesting to compare to the old ones. You can also spend a lot of time on wikipedia trying to sort bits of it out.

Batman Begins on wikipedia
IMDB page
official movie webpage