Movie Night: Batman Begins

Matt, Ryan and I went to see Batman Begins this evening, and it was even better than I had heard. Without any spoilers (at least, beyond what you'd see in most previews or ads): Ras Al'Ghul and Scarecrow were both handled pretty much perfectly. In particular, neither were really played as costumed villians as many would expect from a comic book movie (you'll have to see how that applies to Scarecrow). There have been some slight liberties taken with the Batman origin story, but none that were particularly out of place and all strengthen the plot overall.

This one cleanly takes the title of "best comic book movie" away from either of the Spider-man films (I personally preferred the first of those, though the second seems to get much more praise). It's very much an iconic Batman story, with a well told story, strong acting, and a well designed production.

I'm going to put a spoiler or two after the break in this post, specifically the one big plot mistake that I see, one there was really very little excuse for.

OK, here are the spoilers: So, the fear chemical has been in the Gotham water supply for some time, it just is waiting for the villain to vaporize the water so the populate will breath it. Wow, it's a good thing water doesn't vaporize easily! Only the evil mcguffin device can vaporize water! Oops, just a sec, the tea kettle is boiling.

Ah, that's better. Besides that gaff, the only problem I had was with the extended Batmobile sequence, which seemed gratuitous. At first I thought it was totally pointless, as I thought he should have the antidote with him. It wasn't until the end of the sequence that I realized that Fox had delivered the antidote after Batman went to Arkham.