I saw Batman Begins last night. I liked it better when I saw it a few years ago and it was called Spider-Man. I know Batman's been getting great reviews, and, really, I didn't think it was a bad movie. It kept my attention. I didn't hate it. But plot point for plot point, it seemed like someone had just swapped out Tobey Maguire and inserted Christian Bale, turned the spider into a bat, and magic, we have a new summer blockbuster. Stop reading if you don't want more details, although I don't think I'm really giving much away here. Boy without superpowers and with loving family. Family killed, boy gets superpowers, boy seeks revenge. I guess the sequencing was different in Spider-Man, but same basic stuff going on. Imaginary modern crime-riddled city, exciting scene involving a subway train, some weird scientific mumbo-jumbo. Batman added in some foreign travel. Spider-Man was lighter I guess. In tone, and also actually filmed lighter. They spend a bit of time in Batman laboring over the question of whether Gotham deserves to be saved or not. Despite Christian Bale's lovely performance, I wasn't convinced it did. The weather in Gotham sucked. It seemed to be pouring in almost every scene, and when it wasn't pouring it was cloudy and dark and damp... who would ever want to live there? Maybe that was just because they filmed in Chicago. :) I don't even think they had to do anything to the Chicago subway to make it seem as dilapidated as it did by the end. It's a long movie. A long, long movie. And not a terrible movie. But I'm not sure I'm on board with all of the rave reviews it's been getting. Oh well. Worth seeing anyway.