essmeier: "I'm tired of really talented directors making brilliant movies only to end up pigeonholed into making one dumb comic book movie after another."

Hear, hear.

bored me. I didn't even finish it. It looked like a dull dark mess onscreen, but I suppose some people get off on watching kiddie crap. Who thought of this comic book movie trend anyway? Spiderman? Catwoman?!? c'mon, grow up people.

Do you people roll your eyes as you walk into the theater, or do you at least wait for the trailers to finish? You go to a Batman movie and you can't figure out why the main character's running around like some guy out of a comic book.

Are you kidding?

Holy crap, some of you must be boring as hell in person.

Now if you'll excuse me. I'm going to go wrestle with my masturbation issues (known as the fanboy's curse).

Please!

Don't freak!

You really have earned it!

I dub you...

King Geek.

and

"Batman"

Don't belong in the same sentence.

If it's unclear to 7 out of 10 of us that Nolan is "clearly" trying to emulate ALFRED Hitchcock, then maybe you've made a BIG professional error in your critique (and you've been rightly called on it).

I don't see any real comparison between Hitchcock and Nolan. Memento and Following were both suspense films, but the visual storytelling techniques of Hitchcock and Nolan are distinctly different. As another poster said, have you yourself watched much Hitchcock?

On a separate point, to anyone still baffled by this whole cartoon silliness. It is silly, isn't it? Silly like a man walking on water or healing lepers with his touch. Silly like a man trying to get home on a boat after the Trojan War and dealing with a gallery of monsters and lesbos and gods. Cartoonish like little hobbit's carrying a ring to protect humanity or a silly little british twit who is a wizard. Understand that the graphic novel is as valid a vehicle as any other to allow people in their culture to think about truths.

"14 year old with masturbation issues" is redundant...

Anyway... I'm so freaking excited for this movie! Plot holes be damned! I love Hitchcock as much as the next girl whose father rewarded his children for their cleverness and critical certainty. I like my heroes morally ambiguous and my antagonists deranged. I like special effects and movies to which the adjective "roller coaster ride" can be accurately appendaged.

In the words of my fifteen-year-old students, "Don't be a hater." See you at the movies!!!

It is clear from the title of her Batman Begins review that Stephanie Zacharek didn't know that Nolan was filming the Frank Miller Batman. Miller changed the Batmobile into a tank-like vehicle, and Nolan's version is a brilliant incarnation of that design and fits the psychology of Miller's much darker Batman to a tee. Ms. Zacharek may yearn for the days of Joel Schumacher's ridiculous Batman films, but those that appreciate Frank Miller's brilliant reimagining of the character are glad that Nolan is in charge now.

I'm not a geek, I'm a doofus

Don't you know the difference?

It's like falafel versus loofahs

Or burning socks and incense

Once you were my idol

With your witty little wordplay

But too many jokes about Midol

Revealed you to be a little turdclay

Anyway, I am not a geek

Full of rules and strictures

My sense of self-importance is weak

Though I don't mind a film being called a "picture"

One nerdy question, though, Klytus the Punner

Please pull an opinion out of your butt:

Which is the best version of "Blade Runner"?

The theatrical release, the director's, or the final cut?

Zacharek doesn't like this movie? That means it's bound to be great.

Scuse my irreverence

I didn't know that messin' with the bat

Could be as all serious as that.

I never knew knockin' comic book heroes

Could be so thorny

It's just that to my way of seein' it

Batman Begins was the very soul of fuckin' corny.

I love how Batman Begins is corny, but -- from your handle -- somehow characters from Flash Gordon are cool...? Or is it, "way cooler"?

What's with the "flash?"

Klytus don't want no pop, sizzle, or "flash"

Klytus wants real entertainment

For his hard earned cash.

Can you dig it?

word, homie. just keepin' it real dawg...

paaace...

Butha may tranquilty rule.

If you wanna be the first in line to blow ten bucks to see BatChump, well brutha that's cool.

It's funny that so many people are accusing Zacharek of taking the movie too seriously, when they themselves seem to take it very seriously. As for the recurring question "what's with the Hitchcock comparison?" Um, dunno...could it be...maybe...because every critic in the land has been comparing Nolan to Hitchcock for a while now?

I'm usually not on the same page with Zacharek, but I absolutely agree about Batman Begins: what a colossal bore. Since that was a somber, serious, lengthy (oh, how lengthy; I thought the movie would never end) retelling of Batman's origins, it strikes me she's probably on the mark about this one being a pretentious bore, too.

And what's frustrating about that is that the first movie was so well cast, and the same is probably true of this one, too. Christian Bale is a great choice as Batman. Gary Oldman was an interesting choice as Commissioner Gordon. Morgan Freeman was well cast as Lucius Fox (and it was great to see that character incorporated into the movie series). Cillian Murphey was perfect as the Scarecrow (though how idiotic when someone so visually resemples a scarecrow to throw a loose burlap bag over his head; this is the most idiot hiding of an actor's face since Willem Dafoe was hidden behind that plasic mask in Spider-Man). The whole cast was inspired with, to my mind, the single exception of Michael Caine as Alfred. I like Caine as much as the next person, but he's best at playing working class characters or professional men. As a gentleman's gentleman, he just didn't have the right polish.

If it matters, yes I'm a Batman fan, though I'm mostly a fan of the Golden Age. I've got a few vintage copies and pounds of reprints, and even DVDs of the two crappy Columbia serials. I also like the early 70's Silver Age version as depicted by Neal Adams. I never cared much for Frank Miller's take or the versions of Batman that have followed in his wake. I thought the Tim Burton Batman was only okay at the time, but re-watching it a few years ago, I was surprised at just how good it is, and how well it has held up. Batman Returns was fun, but it was just a prolonged joke, not a real action movie. The less said about the subsequent movies, the better.

Also, I agree with the letter writer (can't find the entry now, or I'd name him/her) who mentioned The X-Files. It's the movie of the summer I'm most eager to see, too.