This is an over rated film that has taken itself as a serious drama. First of all, remember kids... it's Batman. A comic book. All the melodramatic music that played throughout the film made me chuckle. The opening tries too hard and shoves too much down your throat too quickly. You are expected to care about people you just met on screen 3 minutes ago. The hour long back story could have been summed up in ten minutes. Plus, Liam Neason seemed to have too much of the Jedi knight bug in him... I like Christian Bale as an actor. I do... Now, he looked the part, smelled the part but wasn't the part at all. He was lifeless and boring kinda like the film itself. There wasn't enough Bruce Wayne in the film. The billion dollar playboy. The moments he did have just seemed like a spoiled rich kid that could have used some anti-depressants. I didn't feel confusion or insanity in his role. Yes, his parents were in it a lot more and hopefully that would have made you feel his pain when they were killed. Unfortunately, their characters were crappy as well so my heart couldn't pour out for anyone. Nice try though. Katie Holmes character was bad as well as Katie Holmes herself and her so called chemistry with Batman. Who was the villain again? The Scarecrow could have been a more thought out character. He seemed pretty non-existent. Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman are both fine actors but were they needed... No. Now, I'm not too familiar with the comic which is fine cause the film should work on it's own but did Batman drive a Hummer? The action sequences were boring (too fast and too close) and seemed as though I've seen them thousands of times before. I wasn't very impressed with Gotham City either. It just seemed too normal and not very threatening. The only thing that kept it from looking like any other city I've been in was the double layered trains. Hmm... I did like Michael Cane, the hallucination drug and Nolan's attempt to do something different with the series.