Batman Begins
Okay, I had no intention of seeing Batman after the last few debacles, but my bro had birthday dibs, and I was actually pleasantly surprised by some of the choices.
The Good:
I've always been of the mind that unlike most heroes, where the mask is what allows them to do their thing and then get back to their lives, Batman is the real identity and Bruce is the mask that allows him to buy cool toys, keep the Batcave, etc. So it was great not only to see that confirmed but show what there is in the Bruce identity that is precious and irreplaceable, that needs to be maintained beyond an effective cover.
They did a great job of showing all the trial and error and training that went into making this seemingly invincible hero. They really built it up well.
I liked the idea of Alfred as lower-class Brit instead of upper-crusty butler, it gives him way more texture and makes you wonder about his backstory more.
I liked the idea of Gordon as a very human detective, in over his head amongst all the police corruption. He's always been a father figure, but this felt like looking at your parents as an adult, seeing their vulnerabilities and flaws.
I rolled my eyes at the Tumbler, but I did feel like it made sense. The Batmobile was created at a time when fins on Cadillacs were the height of cool; it was a status symbol. Our culture's current status symbol is, like it or not, a Humvee.
The Bad:
Okay, picture this - your arm is broken and you're so terrified that you can't speak and won't get out of bed for another two months. Yet you pause, while your dad's carrying you to the doctor, to deliberately hand a trinket to your childhood sweetheart so she can hand it back to you at a later date for some murky reason.
There are two young!Bruce scenes that neatly tie together two pieces of canon, but come across rather jarringly on screen in execution.
They needed to shave a couple seconds off the car chase and use it for a climbing montage. Bruce takes one step at the bottom of the mountain, immediately is in a little village, climbs up one little spur of rock and finds himself at the unreachable monastery.
Hm, superpowered microwave beam and all it does is evaporate water? No heating metal or boiling flesh? Aside from the WTF aspect of how you'd rig that, Gotham got off easy, man!
The Ugly:
I felt a bit weird about a movie that has foreign villains with bad accents talking about how it's their sacred duty to plunge decadent American cities into chaos. Oh yeah, and hey, the fact that the ninjas are run by a caucasian guy, the only person with any intelligence or skill in the whole country. But that's just me.