Warner Brothers were somewhat understandably concerned, but also very reluctant to go ahead with a fifth Batman film and decided to can the franchise for the time being, this was quite a sensible decision as this allowed new fans to become accustomed to the more traditional medium of Batman, the comics, due to the damage that this film had done.

The film was titled Batman Begins ands tells the story of how Bruce Wayne becomes Batman, in a very dark manner with quite a number of sinister characters. This concept had never been fully explored to this scale before and unlike other visualisations it was felt that it really was time that this approach was done, in fact not even the previous four Batman films had taken this much of a stance in telling the story as they had all been relatively short flashbacks. The Adam West version from the late 60's never touched the subject of the murder of Brice Wayne's parents and no origin story had ever been told.

The rest of the story involves Wayne wanting revenge for the murder of his parents and in some cases, before he dons the Batman costume, finding this out in a painful manner that he can be hurt as well as trying to hurt those responsible. What is very cleverly done throughout the film is that the level of corruption in the city is tackled in a way that Batman only has to deal with the smallest number of people to get the best results, therefore he just goes for the people at he top. After discovering who it was who set a contract for the murder of the Wayne's, Bruce decides that there is only one way to get this issue sorted as Gotham has changed and become a dangerous place. Wayne utilises the cover of the Wayne Enterprises and upon arrival at the family business immediately requests a job in the company. He is given a minor role that allows him access to the Research and Development department working alongside an old family friend, Lucious Fox played by Morgan Freeman. From here Bruce decides that as most of the hardware here is gathering dust that he has a much better use to it. With help from Alfred Pennyworth, played by Michael Caine, a vast cavern beneath Wayne Manor is slowly converted into the Batcave. You see Bruce and Alfred effectively starting from scratch on the creation of a solution to address the balance in Gotham. It is very interesting to see how this is done and nothing is held back and not explained, in fact the methods used are fully explainable and justified throughout.

The cast is also well known and when watching the credits at the end reads like a Who's Who as surprisingly a lot of the cast is actually British.

Wayne is helped out by a number of people, most notably Caine as trusted Butler Alfred Pennyworth, an English butler who has been part of the Wayne household for years, he gets to know Bruce inside out and is aware of the Wayne legacy that Bruce must uphold and protect. Caine plays the role of confident with the style and class that you would expect, he has a big part ion the film, which I didn't expect, and is also utilised as some comedy relief in some areas of the film. I think with him in the film he has made the part of Alfred memorable with screen time used wisely and not wasted.

As mentioned earlier Morgan Freeman plays Lucious Fox, a veteran employee of Wayne Enterprises and an ex board member who has been sidelined. He is now overseeing the Research and Development Department that effectively bank rolls Batman as most of his equipment has been "borrowed" from here. Freeman seems to have a ball in this film as he gets screen time with Bale and Caine, by the end of the film he becomes a trusted associate of Bruce and re-enters the circle of friendship again. As I said before the casting really does make the difference here and casting Freeman in this role again is true to the Batman legacy and an inspired choice as he adds another dimension to the back story and the character is heavily involved in a number of the sub plots of the story.

There are two main villains in the film, The Scarecrow played by Irish actor and Cillian Murphy who is disturbingly frightening in the film and Ra's Al Ghul, who I won't go into too much; if you watch the film you'll know why!!!

I feel I must mention Direction here, the Director of the film is Christopher Nolan who has taken the script based on the graphic novel 'Batman: Year one' has effectively transferred an origin story and made it into a very smooth and stylish film that really has kicked life into the Batman franchise without actually being linked to the previous films in any way. Nolan also part wrote the film with David S Goyer. Nolan refused to have a Second Unit Director and completed the entire shoot by himself, a total of 129 days worth of filming was completed, every one with Nolan present on set. I think that this shows the dedication that Nolan had, it is well known that he is a fan of Batman and that he wanted to stay true to the story itself. I think what he wanted to avoid was the continue recasting of the main character which was a previous problem.

When this was released it sold itself not as the fifth film in the franchise but as a new start of something new and revitalised, well I sincerely hope that this carries on as Nolan and all the strong cast have signed a three deal contract so hopefully this will go the distance and not run out of steam like the Spider Man franchise did with the last film, which I didn't really agree with. It will not be interesting to see how the character of Robin is introduced but also interesting to see how different the character of Batman will be in the next film, as it is widely known that his will be The Joker as the villain.