As a young boy, Bruce Wayne watched in horror as his millionaire parents were slain in front of him--a trauma that leads him to become obsessed with revenge. But the opportunity to avenge his parent's deaths is cruelly taken away from him by fate. Fleeing to the East, where he seeks counsel with the dangerous but honorable ninja cult leader known as Ra's Al-Ghul, Bruce returns to his now decaying Gotham City, which is overrun by organized crime and other dangerous individuals manipulating the system. Meanwhile, Bruce is slowly being swindled out of Wayne Industries, the company he inherited. The discovery of a cave under his mansion, along with a prototype armored suit, leads him to assume a new persona, one which will strike fear into the hearts of men who do wrong; he becomes Batman!!! In the new guise, and with the help of rising cop Jim Gordon, Batman sets out to take down the various nefarious schemes in motion by individuals such as mafia don Falcone, the twisted doctor/drug dealer Jonathan 'The Scarecrow' Crane, and a mysterious third party that is quite familiar with Wayne and waiting to strike when the time is right. [TRAILER]

STEVEN SNYDER'S REVIEW

There’s a dimension to “Batman” that has been missing from its movies. That is, until now.

“Batman Begins” is not only the best in the franchise, and among the best films of this year, but also one of the most complicated and inspiring superhero films ever made. It is the realistic story of how one man becomes a superhero in entirely believable ways, and how his actions as a masked crusader are steeped in an intense personal struggle with pain and need for vengeance.

It’s also the first “Batman” story to accurately depict the series’ preoccupation with fear.

Most “Batman” films only celebrate the hero’s actions, rejoicing when he creatively turns the tables on his nemeses. But really, the “Batman” universe should be a bit more complicated than that. He is not Superman, blessed with powers since birth. He’s not Spider-Man, who has been given great power and now has a great responsibility to sacrifice his life for the betterment of society.

No, he is a scared man who grew up as a scared boy, and he now wants to invert that fear onto others. As “Batman Begins” tells it, he grew up in a wealthy family that tried its best to better a dying city. And then he watched as that eroding city took them from his life.

So young Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) abandons the hellhole he grew up in and in a fit of revenge gets arrested so he can be surrounded by criminals who deserve what they have coming. That is, until a mysterious man (Liam Neeson) arrives at the prison doors, gets him released, and brings him to a remote mountain top where his anger, violence and skills are honed into a lethal package.

And it is here where the film’s most important twist occurs. This man, and this mountaintop facility, are not designed to attack criminals. This is all part of a secret organization which sees Gotham City the same way Wayne does – as a wasteland. And they are committed to tearing it down, like ancient Rome, and starting over.

It is here where director and co-writer Christopher Nolan (“Memento,” “Insomnia”) along with co-writer David S. Grover show they have the guts to take this film into complicated territory. Yes, Wayne sees the degeneration of his home, but he does not believe it is rotten to the core.

The easy path would be to lay waste to the city. The difficult option would be to walk away. Instead, he is the hero who sacrifices himself for his cause. He chooses the most difficult path, and heads back to take on the crooks and right the city’s wrongs. In the process, he encounters an insane doctor who is poisoning the city’s water supply and must sacrifice his public image – as billionaire son – to divert suspicion of his heroic acts.

With Nolan’s vast, intricate landscape and Bale’s subdued performance, “Batman Begins” shows how an ordinary man uses his privilege to slowly create, strategize and organize his superhero persona.

This is not easy, but grueling; he’s the superhero who gets bruised, loses his temper and makes big mistakes. He learns, over time, how to be the “Batman” he needs to be.

Always in the background is an added theme of renewal and rebirth. From the cops to the judicial system, corporations and even public transportation, “Batman” depicts a progression of the corrupt institutions, that have become the very problem, being confronted, corrected and used again in the service of something good.

Which, incidentally, could also be theme of the “Batman” franchise. What has been corrupted has been restored, in a movie that does not simply dazzle us or celebrate itself, but in one which encourages us all that we have the power within ourselves to make things better.

Here’s the hero we don’t just like to watch, but wish we could be.

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