I couldn't find a mobster

Yesterday I finally got around to watching Batman Begins as it's appeared for selection on my magic space-TV box. A word of warning - if you've not seen it I do mention spoilery stuff, so if you're sensitive to that kind of thing look away now.

As much as I like the original Tim Burton Batman film, I think this works as a better beginning. Even though if it does take a while to go batty I wasn't bored.

That said there are several elements I'm uncomfortable with: I enjoyed Liam Neeson's performance a lot but I just didn't find Ducard believable as a character. I don't think it was the acting I just don't think I got the motivation for him - poncy as that sounds.

Then there's the very end. Katie Holmes turns up to the burned-out Wayne Manner, makes a big show of showing her deep feelings for Bruce before basically saying that he's just not the man she once thought she might love (when they were pre-teen). It's hard to describe here but I thought like she played it as a tease - and not in a good way.

The thing that didn't sit right most of all comes at the climax of the film. Batman and Ducard are literally heading for a train crash and Bats exclaims that while he won't kill him, he won't save him either. Now I know that he's supposed to be a complex and tortured character, but that strikes me as far less than heroic. I like my heroes to save the villain to prove they're just not like them. I know he didn't strike the killer blow but as Bats basically engineered the crash in the first place that makes him a killer too.

By now it's very much a familiar story-outline, but all the mountainous stuff was a surprise. Mountainous ninja stuff has been fashionable in film for a while now, it seems, and I'm sure that element will date quite quickly. I do want to see more though. The lighting and cinema-work were wonderful, in my opinion, and it looked dark without falling into the X-Files. The set-up for a second film with the Joker looks compelling too, and most of all Michael Caine was born to play Alfred.