Bruce Wayne, the heir to a huge industrial empire, grows up in Gotham City, but is still haunted by the murder of his parents by street thug Joe Chill, which he witnessed as a child. Hearing Chill has been released early in exchange for testifying against Carmine Falcone, a major crime boos, Bruce is determined to have revenge, but Chill is killed by one of Falcone’s men before Bruce can get him, and his talk of revenge and the hatred within him has alienated Rachel Dawes, his childhood sweetheart. Disillusioned and feeling abandoned, he boards a cargo ship as an anonymous crewman, travelling the world and dealing with lowlifes and petty hoods to try to understand how the criminal mind works. A chance meeting with the mysterious Ducard in China brings Bruce into the League Of Shadows, a secret society dedicated to defeating crime, and led by Ra’s Al Ghul. Trained in fighting and martial-arts skills, Bruce starts to disagree with the society’s ruthless vigilante aims, and eventually has to fight his way out of their headquarters before making his way back to Gotham City, he decides to fight crime on his own. Using the resources of the Wayne empire, and aided by his faithful butler, Alfred Pennyworth, and Lucius Fox, a scientist working for Wayne Industries, he develops a protective fighting suit, which also acts as a disguise, earning him the name Batman. While honing his image as a playboy, Bruce is Batman by night, fighting crime on the streets of Gotham City, and his interception of a major drugs shipment leads the Gotham Police, led by Jim Gordon, to arrest Falcone. From the inventory of drugs seized, Bruce realises that some of the shipment was being diverted for a special purpose, for Dr. Jonathan Crane, a corrupt crime psychologist who is working on a hallucinogen which can induce mass panic and fear. Rachel Dawes, now a city DA, is also investigating Crane, but is kidnapped by Crane and taken back to his headquarters, where he is planning to pump the drugs into the city’s water supply, and send the population made with fear, setting himself up as the sinister Scarecrow in order to orchestrate the mayhem. Rachel is rescued by Batman, who realises that there is a connection of the League Of Shadows, Ducard having assumed command and taken the name of Ra’s Al Ghul, revealing that their plan is to rid the city of what they see as its’ corruption by causing mass rioting and murders, Batman knowing that to defeat the League’s insane plan he will have to defeat the maniacal Ducard and his henchmen. Christopher Nolan seemed to be a surprise choice to relaunch Warner’s tentpole Batman franchise after the camp misfire which was 1997’s Batman And Robin, but the choice has been superb, and perhaps pre-empted by Nolan’s two previous features, the complex, time-shifting Memento and the Scandinavian remake Insomnia which both dealt with questions of identity, be it Guy Pearce trying to remember, literally, who he is, or Robin Williams’ murderer constantly almost taunting frazzled cop Al Pacino as to his culpability, and in Batman Begins the story is as much about the problems with the duality of Bruce Wayne / Batman. Whereas the Tim Burton Batman films were dark and brooding pieces, the takeover of the franchise by Joel Schumacher indicated a shift in both intensity and the complexity of the scripts, a move reversed in Batman Begins, as the story by Nolan and David S. Goyer takes the intelligence of the audience for granted, coming up with a complex and intricate narrative, beginning with a dream sequence which has connections to Bruce Wayne’s past, and Christian Bale (American Psycho / The Machinist) is well cast as both sides of the character, the playboy image he cultivates to hide his darker side, and the justice-weilding Batman, images of bats being cleverly interpolated as to add psychological weight to his choice of motif. Although largely shot at Shepperton Studios, the film also shoots on location for the first time in the loose franchise, with filming taking place in London, Iceland and New York, Nolan wanting to give the Gotham City of the film a less stagebound, confined feel, and instead of the dark and brooding metropolis as it is usually depicted, the Gotham here is obviously a very real and operational city, grounding Wayne / Batman against a far more credible background. Where the real surprise comes is in how well Nolan handles the action sequences, none of his previous productions having the same sort of set-pieces as required here, Bale, complete with a deeper, growly voice once the Batman cowl is on being convincing, and the idea of using his Wayne Industries fortune to essentially have his Batman persona as a company side-project, is ingenious. Also unlike the Schumacher entries, there is an integration of the supporting roles into the film which is intrinsic to the script, rather than just having slightly uncomfortable ‘guest stars’ in purely ornamental roles, such as Uma Thurman’s utterly redundant Poison Ivy, and the cast is truly impressive, including Katie Holmes (Pieces Of April / TV’s Dawson’s Creek), the excellent Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai), Morgan Freeman (Kiss The Girls), Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner), Liam Neeson (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace), Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later), and most impressively Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth, the faithful butler, cast here as more a fatherly protector, understanding the torment Bruce sufferers and his efforts to cope with it. Interestingly both Nolan and Goyer seem to understand that being the first film in what Warners hope will be a relaunched franchise, that Batman is the focus and not the villains, so refrain from pitting him against the obvious Joker or Riddler, and instead opt for some of the lesser-known villains in the canon, The Scarecrow and Ras’ Al Ghul. Brilliantly photographed by Wally Pfister, who also worked with Nolan on Insomnia, with a truly effective eye for the visuals, the bat image being cleverly used in the periphery of scenes, and with some extremely well-choreographed actions scenes, ranging from martial-arts to sword fights, Nolan has brought intelligence and real menace back to Batman, the result is a terrifically clever and well-staged action pic which manages to blot out the unhappy memories of the Schumacher excesses, which is quite an achievement.