Batman has finally come home. Not just to a story that painstakingly details his origins, but to an ominous style that suits it beautifully. Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins" disdains the mindless camp and compulsive weirdness that mostly characterized its quartet of predecessors and unapologetically positions its hero at the dark end of the street. With Christian Bale in the title role, this is a film noir Batman, a brooding, disturbing piece of work that starts slowly but ends up crafting a world that just might haunt your dreams. Though his name might not have initially been on everyone's lips, Bale turns out to be an excellent fit for Nolan's conception of the Dark Knight. Always a humorless, almost sullen actor, Bale uses those qualities to create a painfully earnest character driven to a life of crime-fighting almost against his will. With Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman. (K.Tu., June 14)
(2:20) PG-13 for intense action violence, disturbing images and some thematic elements.
This movie showing at (click on theater for showtimes):
