One thought kept bouncing through my head over and over as I watched Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan‘s magnificent reconceptualizaion of the Batman mythos:

“They get it.”

Director Nolan (Memento, Insomnia) and co-screenwriter David Goyer understand that audiences don’t want to see the primary-color pap of Joel Schumacher‘s last two Batman travesties. We don’t want superhero movies designed only to sell toys. We don’t want superhero movies that treat us like idiots for caring about these characters. We damn sure don’t want nipples on our bat-suits.

What we want are superhero movies that take the characters and the situations seriously. We want to feel like the filmmakers have put some serious thought into their work, that the filmmakers respect the intelligence of the audience. We want sharp dialogue and strong acting just as much as we want gripping action sequences. We want superhero movies that are just damn good movies, period. They get it.

(This spot seems like as good as any for me to say this: To all of you “journalists” who seem absolutely incapable of writing any article or review about anything comics-related without using “POW! WHAM!” or “Holy (Insert Lame Joke Here), Batman!”… fuck you. No, seriously. I’ve had it. I mean, c’mon…you do realize that the “Batman” TV show went off the air almost forty years ago, right? For you to keep making those asinine references is just lazy writing, honestly. It’s a shorthand way for you to wink at the reader: “Look how silly these comic books are! Aren’t superheroes DUMB?!” And it trivializes all of the amazing work that’s been part of the medium. Let Batman Begins officially close the circle and put an end to all of the BIFF! ZOW!s, OK?

Rant over. Glad we could get that straightened out.)

As you might have guessed from the title, Batman Begins tells the story of exactly how Bruce Wayne transformed himself into Batman. We don’t see Christian Bale in the Batman costume until well over an hour into the movie–and we don’t care. The early sequences with Wayne’s training at the hands of his mysterious mentor Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) and the inscrutable Ra’s Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe), leader of the quasi-terrorist League of Shadows, carry such excitement and emotional heft that we’re not in a hurry to see Batman himself appear. And we need these early scenes, for each scene adds another layer of understanding to the psychology of this broken man.

After Bruce returns to Gotham (an astonishingly real-looking city, none of the overblown art deco-influenced architecture of the previous movies), we finally get the answer to the question Jack Nicholson‘s Joker asked in Tim Burton‘s original Batman: “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” Nolan and Goyer go to a lot of trouble to show exactly how Wayne could have come to possess the costume and all of the gadgets so readily associated with Batman, largely thanks to Wayne Enterprises’ head of Research and Development, Lucius Fox (a relaxed and charismatic Morgan Freeman). The scenario laid out in Batman Begins makes perfect sense and provides a credible explanation for how Bruce built the Batman; one only has to accept the conceit that Bruce Wayne has an even greater stash in the bank than Donald Trump.

For having lost his father so early, Bruce Wayne collects a number of fathers during Batman Begins. It’s notable that we see almost nothing of Bruce’s relationship with his mother but several flashbacks to scenes between him and his father. Ducard acts as his first surrogate father, giving Bruce the focus and the physical tools to carry out his mission (and Ducard provokes the greatest anger from Bruce by suggesting Bruce’s father was responsible for the tragedy that took both of Bruce’s parents). Bruce gets his emotional support and assistance with the construction of the Batman identity from long-time family butler Alfred (a relaxed and charismatic Michael Caine). And the trusted Lucius Fox unquestioningly supplies with him his arsenal. Note that there are no surrogate mother-figures in the movie; that absence might explain as much about Bruce’s character as his overabundance of surrogate dads.

One of the greatest strengths of Batman Begins has to be its cast. Christian Bale might not look just the way I’ve always pictured Bruce Wayne (George Clooney was actually the closest of the film Batmen to the one in my head), but the intensity and emotion he brings to the role is undeniable; Bale’s eyes communicate Bruce’s anguish, passion and anger eloquently and forcefully. The veteran character actors populating the supporting roles — Caine, Neeson, Freeman, Gary Oldman (as Seargant-Slash-Future-Commissioner Gordon) — all absolutely nail their parts. I’m hoping to see more of Oldman in particular in the inevitable sequels. Cillian Murphy brings a fantastic level of creepy confidence and charm to the movie’s secondary villain, The Scarecrow. (And thanks to Nolan and Goyer for using two second-tier bad guys instead of any of the big guns — using Ra’s Al Ghul and Scarecrow rather than, say, the Joker or Riddler helped keep the focus on Batman, where it belonged).

The only real casting misstep was Katie Holmes as a young assistant D.A./requisite love interest. Don’t get me wrong, I like Holmes and she certainly wasn’t terrible, but there are many other actresses who would have brought a greater impression of drive, intelligence and passion to the part. Holmes just didn’t feel like an assistant district attorney. I felt like she’d been cast because she was gorgeous (which she is) and not because of what she brought to the part, which wasn’t a lot. The fact that her casting was my biggest quibble with Batman Begins should tell you just how highly I regarded this movie.

Batman Begins represents the culmination of the trend of recent comic book-based movies toward a more realistic treatment of superheroes. The first X-Men movie ushered it in, the first Spider-Man improved on it, and the sequels to each raised the bar higher. But none of those movies dealt with their subjects as impressively and intricately as does Batman Begins. The only other superhero movie that can be compared to this one in terms of treatment is The Incredibles, which featured a similar devotion to deep characterization mixed with blood-pumping action. And I feel safe in saying that The Incredibles and Batman Begins are the two best superhero movies ever made.