WOW. I agree with all that Patman said. I would say the best movie I have seen this year. It was also nice to have a comic book movie for grown ups.

I just got back from a Midnight showing and all I can say is Incredible! I mean talk about getting it right! For a late night show there was a lot of cheering clapping and laughter from the audience. And best of all,

Throughout the whole movie I kept thinking, “This is a very mature Batfilm. Batman was hardcore. Batman was SERIOUS. Batman was INTENSE. There were no silly smirks or stupid ass jokes from him. No silly shit, nor cartoony garbage, and nothing in the film to make one groan with disgust”.

People complain about Bats taking so long to show up but I think they did it right. Bats showed up when HE WAS SUPPOSED TOO. Thankfully he wasn’t just pushed out onstage too early to satisfy impatient audiences. The fight scenes were great. They seemed very realistic. Gotham looked like a real city and I don’t miss the “Goth-Vegas” of past Batflicks.

Bottom line, this movie works on many levels and I hope the next one stays up to the standards of this film.

Here's my review, spoiler-free and fairly damn enthusiastic.

Enjoy the movie, guys!

EDIT: And be sure to let us know what you thought of the Batman Begins podcast, as recorded by me and G-Money Kleinman.

Well, I just found out this morning that this film premiers in Puerto Rico tommorrow. It's just one more day but it it's still irksome to me.

FWIW, and I know this will not be a popular thing to say, I wouldn't really mind it if Batman Begins underperformed at the box-office and couldn't muster a sequel (though with DVD elements that seems inevitable). The two efforts before this left a really bad taste in my mouth as a Batman fan, and this one more than made up for it and restored honor to the character and then some.
The way I see it, if this one underperforms then the fans will finally have a Batman movie done the right way and there won't be any sequels to taint what it has accomplished; and let's be honest, if it were to kick off a fresh franchise it would only be a matter of time before it would suffer from cooki cutter sequels. I say stop it now while it still has its integrity.

Ebert's 4-star review here

...It appears that the producers of Batman Begins likely went to the trouble to carefully study the early Batman comics from the late 1930's and probably read Frank Miller's Batman: Year One comic miniseries, too.

We definitely have a winner right here; I'm definitely going to see this movie over the next few days.

Loved every bit of it. The Scarecrow effects were awesome! I hope he comes back in the future. And as usual Liam Neeson is fantastic.

For those who have seen it, was there a T. Welling cameo?

As refered to here:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=381772

If Tom was in there, which is quite possible, I didn't catch it. I'll keep an eye out during visit #2.

Bah. I'll never prescribe to the sequels or adapatation or whatever tainting other material. While I love a good series, bad sequels don't in my mind taint the original. If the movie is good, then it can stand on its own in my opinion. I for one would love to see sequels. And if you have good talent involved, you can have a good sequel...Spiderman 2 showed that. There's just do much great potential for Batman I'd hate to have it just end.

Just got back from it. Believe it or not, I still like Batman, Returns, and Forever more than this. Yes that is right -- BATMAN FOREVER is better! Val Kilmer smacks Bale around. I couldn't take a lot of the dialogue in the movie -- new screenwriters next time please.

Fans "finally" saw a Batman movie done right in 1989. Remember -- that is what everyone said. Now that a new one is out everyone forgets their past opinions from back in the day and change with the times to somehow lump the other four into the garbage.

Scarecrow, Fox, and Rachel were all good. Bale tried too hard -- he needs to get a hold of how to do the deep throaty voice so that we can actually understand what he says. Hell, sometimes as Bruce he mumbled. Michael Gough was a way better Alfred. Now I guess the new Gordon was on par with the old one... but really... new Gordon I was not impressed with at all.

Now for the good stuff...

SCARECROW!

Now THAT was an awesome performance. If only the rest of the movie was as good as the Scarecrow. Fantastic. I hope that he returns in the next film to somehow work with you know who.

I too liked this quite a bit. More so than i thought that i would. I went to Wednesday 12:40 pm showing in Indy, and when I arrived as the previews started, i was shocked to be the 2nd person there! There were another dozen or so that arrived, but still not a good showing. When I went to see Star Wars at a noon showing on day one, it was packed. I hope that this is just a fluke. I'm sure that they will more than double their $$ after dvd comes in. But what now to look forward to at the movies???

A shame to see this movie not doing well with so many people liking it. Guess the opinions of geeks don't matter much to the general public. Now before you say mass opinion and big box-office does not a good movie make, I agree with you. However, it seems studios think otherwise. If this movie being done the right way fails, then that's less incentive for studios to take the correct approach with similar properties in the future.

Why is everyone saying the film hasn't done well, have the wednesday numbers come in? Maybe everyone will see it on the weekend.

I'm confused...are you saying the film isn't doing well? Cause it just came out today and it's a bit too early to call that one yet... Sorry if I read that one wrong but I wasn't quite sure what you were saying there...

Cause...I don't think this film is going to fail. At worst it'll still clear 150 million I'd say.

Edit: I'm guessing your referring to the report on showbizdata saying the midnight showings weren't too highly attended. I woudln't fret too much over that one though...it's still got a lot of room to excel

http://www.showbizdata.com/contacts/...s.cfm?id=38830

No review from me , just a simple EXCELLENT. Very well done, everything was great, and as for Scarecrow magnificent.

Looking forward to a sequel most deffinetly. Bring on the casting for

I saw the 12:15 (noon) showing and myself and 8 other people were there.

The midnight showing I went to was close to full, but it was only on one screen. Guess people weren't interested overall. The reason I dislike it when a movie I like doesn't do so hot is because in retrospect all the entertainment mags and reports remember it as is a failure. Not a good movie with lackluster receipts, or a noble attempt, but a failure at the bottomline, and little else is said.

I really really hope this movie does well.

I am about to watch it tonight and bought tickets hours before. So disappointed to hear that only 5 tickets so far were sold.

A good critic's review will tell you if you're going to like the movie or not regardless of whether it's positive or negative.

Then at the other end, you have all those internet "wannabe" critics who think reviews are spoiling every detail and plot twist about a movie and then either bitching about it or singing its high praises.

A lot more of those critics work for papers and mags these days.