Batman Begins

jesus christ(opher) nolan really likes explosions. the visual effects were stunning. everything about the mise en scene, from the fear gas, to the bridges bursting, and the dust and debris, was super duper realistic. to me this movie does not feel dated in the slightest, and looks better than most of the films being released today. the one complaint i have is that gotham looks boring as hell. aside from the cool monorail system and the narrows, gotham really just looks like any other major city with office buildings and plain windowed skyscrapers. ideally, gotham would be a gothic meets art deco architectural style, with each building having a unique characteristic that contributes to the wonky, contrasting skyline. i really liked that nolan included some comic-accurate touches like the bat-swarm scene and the fight at the docking ports from batman: year one. christian bale was a good pick for batman as well, but whenever he's bruce wayne it just feels like bale in a suit. cillian murphy's scarecrow was so menacing i just wished we got to see more of his asylum specifically. the score was decent-ish, not particularly bad but i wouldn't call it hans zimmer's best work. maybe the score just got drowned out in the sound of the special effects but it didn't really stand out to me. i'm a little disappointed in my goat zimmer. now not to be nit-picky but i did not think the romance plot was very good. there was maybe a few hints of chemistry between bruce and rachael but it just was not properly explored enough for me to care about them. no hate on the actors, both christian bale and katie holmes did great, i think the romantic plot just got shuffled underneath all the action and high-stakes storylines. oh and the batsuit is mid. overall i'm just glad to see morgan freeman's beautiful face on my screen.