Kapow, bash, thwack. Holy cash-ins, there’s a new Batman franchise out!

The caped crusader has had a long running relationship with the screen. First of all there was the camp-tastic TV series from the sixties, which even had it’s own feature film Batman in 1966, in which Batman and Robin teamed up against all their worst enemies (Catwoman, The Joker, The Riddler, and The Penguin). Then 23 years later, Tim Burton brought out a new franchise which started promisingly with the originally titled Batman and spawned three increasingly poor sequels. By the time Batman and Robin was released in 1997, most of us had given up caring. The problem with that series was that the villains were the most interesting part of it. OK Keaton was not bad as the lead role, but he was upstaged by Jack Nicholson in the original and Michelle Pfeiffer / Danny Devito in Batman Returns. Then the villains got less interesting the camp crusader Robin re-entered the fray, and no-one can really remember which actor played which Batman in the last two films.

But now it’s the 21^st century and we have CGI, and so every comic book in existence is getting pillaged so a never ending supply of superhero movies can keep cinema profits high. Or at least that’s the idea.

The surprising thing, then, is that Batman Begins is actually good. Not timeless classic good, not even film of the year good, but certainly the best stab at a Batman film, and possibly the best in a soon to be exhausted genre.

The story is primarily about the creation of Batman, and so it starts with Bruce Wayne in an oriental prison - reminiscent of the odd start to the last Bond film. Director Chris Nolan is best known for his backwards narrative film Memento, and he plays around with flashbacks and the like here as well. It’s more Passion of the Christ than Memento in that respect, but the flashbacks do provide key insights into the young Wayne’s character formation.

What is best about this new chapter of Batman adaptations is that Batman is the centre of the film again. In the last cinema incarnation Batman held little interest for the viewer. But Nolan and actor Christian Bale flesh his character out superbly. Batman strives for justice, but his primary tool is fear, and you sense he’s never far away from really losing it. As a result the film forms a great tension in it’s audience knowing that Batman’s path is right, but also used to seeing the bad guys killed.

It’s this kind of morality that propels Batman ahead of its box office comic Book rival Sin City. Batman is concerned for justice. Sin City only for revenge. Sin City delights in the violence. Batman buries it in a whirl of action. Sin City leaves no hope for the redemption of a fallen city. Batman sees light at the end of the tunnel. Sin City can only conceive as women as being sex objects. Batman finally gives us a female lead who is actually important to the hero’,s work, who doesn’t scream in at the first sign of danger and who has a relatively high powered job without being a (bat)man eater.

If there were any criticisms it would be that the film takes a little too long to really get going -–the early fight sequence seeming to have been added in for interest. And whilst the visualisation of Gotham is impressive it’s not nearly so darkly stunning as Tim Burton’s gothic urban hell. But these are minor quibbles with an otherwise great film, which will probably be one of the most entertaining films of 2005.