Batman Begins

Not to raise expections too much, but Batman Begins is easily the best movie I’ve seen this year. By far. How’s that for not overhyping it? It might be though more a reflection of how few movies I’ve seen. But yeah, great movie.

***** SPOILERS *****

I think it gets 4 stars in my system. No 5th star because I’ve thought about it, and there’s nothing deep about it. It flirts with interesting ideas about the nature of justice but Rha’s Al Ghul goes too far beyond this, caring nothing about the innocent that justice should concern itself with, making his viewpoint untenable. So no profundity. But otherwise, a fantastic film. 4 stars.

***** END SPOILERS *****

I very lightly teared up at one point, though nowhere near the level of Spider-Man 2. Issues.

Also, I can’t quite recommend seeing it at the IMAX in the San Jose Tech Museum. Picture and sound was amazing, but since it’s a dome theater, it’s just too enveloping. You literally have to turn your head to catch stuff and it’s dizzying. The fight scenes were incomprehensible. At some point you have to just give up, stare at a fixed point, and try to let stuff soak in through your peripheral vision. Based on seeing Matrix 2 at the Sony Metreon in SF, I’d recommend going there over the Tech if you want to see a movie on IMAX.