The problem with many, many superhero films in this day and age is that with each and every single one, the fantasy element seems to decrease. there is a worrying amount of realism applied to these films. lotr, the star wars trilogy, the matrix, even sin city, were all excellent because the film makers crafted a thoroughly believable fantasy world that absorbed us. batman begins sucks because it is based entirely within the real world (gotham city could just as well be new york, LA, even London or Paris).

when in reality, if a guy dresses up in a rubber suit, as a 'bat', and starts to fight crime, he'd be arrested for being a pervert/ vigilante or both, and would get sent down to the loony bin for life.

many fans of comic books, or 'geeks', as i like to call them, have got to understand that comic books exist as pure fantasy and nothing else. I have noticed, esp. since harry Knowles aicn, that a lot of emphasis has come into making super hero films real and dramatic. Could you imagine if the lotr or star wars trilogy were treated as gritty dramas rather than the outstanding piece of genre film making that they are? Theyd be terrible.

There is one scene in batman begins that seems especially ludicrous. commissioner Gordon (played by a wasted Gary oldman) is seen having a dead pan conversation with a guy dressed as a giant rubber bat, and doesn't seem to batter an eyelid. The scene is played out for real, and like the rest of the film we are expected to believe, without any clever twists, that this could really happen. When without all the explosions, action and SFX, the film would be nothing.

If these 'geeks' want their fantasy films and nothing else, then so be it. If they want human drama, realism, plausibility mixed with the surreal, watch either classic 70s films such as taxi driver, clockwork orange, apocalypse now, day of the locust, David lynch films, or Japanese horrors such as uzumaki. a gritty drama about a giant rubber bat is kinda pushing things a bit too far.