Saw. Enjoyed tremendously. The Bat-action towards the end goes a little bit off the rails, but on the whole… this is definitely the definitive cinematic Batman, and if there’s any actor alive who can pull off Bruce Wayne’s neurotic-but-superhumanly-determined thing, it’s Christian Bale. All the characters hit just the right notes, especially Bruce, Gary Oldman’s Gordon and Michael Caine’s sublime working-class Alfred. And the new Batsuit is cool as hell: in fact, I want one, just to scare my estate agents and to go bump in the night.
The movie is not without its faults. Katie Holmes is a bit weak, and is that the shine of Scientology I see in those pretty eyes? Ra’s al-Ghul’s master plan doesn’t really make that much sense, and The Scarecrow doesn’t actually … do much. I’d have preferred the all-gangsters version of the Year One story. But the brilliant characterisation and the sheer respect for the source material makes me forgive a lot. Fear as a general theme for the movie works brilliantly, and it’s unfortunate that they didn’t go for the originally proposed title, Intimidation Game.
I loved the scenes in which we see Batman from the criminals’ point of view: this horrible dark thing that comes, grabs your buddy in a dark alley and disappears into the shadows: you feel the weight of that gun in your hand and know that it’s not going to do any good and you’re next…