We just got back from Batman Begins (imdb | rotten tomatoes), and…whoa. It was good. Better than I expected,to be honest. The last few Batman movies were just so so bad that not even the combination of Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale (not to mention the supporting cast) gave me a lot of hope. But we saw it, and it delivered.

Much, much darker than even the first two Tim Burton films, it started out better than it finished. But even then, the second half was interesting enough to stay entertaining.

Back to the supporting cast: Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Katie Holmes (who I don’t hate, but I think there’s a non-acting-related reason for that), Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Rutger Hauer…quite a lineup. They gave it a good flavour, and Bale didn’t embarass himself the way George Clooney or Val Kilmer did (though I think that had as much to do with Schumacher and the script as with their lack of bat-charisma), so thumbs up on the cast. The back-story (well, the whole movie was back-story, so…the back-story to the back-story) was well done too. The fight sequences were, as seems to be the norm these days, frantic and confused to the point of being unwatchable, but whattaya gonna do? Overall it’s a good couple of hours.

Oh, by the way, we saw the trailer for the Dukes Of Hazzard movie. Bikini-clad Jessica Simpson or not, I’d rather fuck an angry raccoon than see that piece of shit.