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Bat guano anyone?

“Batman Begins”

It doesn’t really matter what I say about this movie, because everybody and their brother is going to go see it. That’s fine. It’s your money.

The director of the cult independent film, “Memento” has been given the key to the Bat cave, but his vision of Gotham City and its inhabitants feels like a thousand clichés stuck together with Bat-tape. What was once a stylish and witty action-adventure in the hands of Tim Burton is retooled here into a ponderous mess of poor editing and inert pacing that feels like eternity.

Even the two Joel Schumacher chapters are better than this reverential monstrosity. Never mind that they can’t keep the same guy in the black rubber suit from film to film. That’s the least of this movie’s problems. Not that Christian Bale is much of a presence; he’s miscast here as much as he was in that terrible misfire, “American Psycho.” I don’t buy him as Bruce Wayne for a minute. And I certainly don’t find him to be the least bit likable. Basically, he’s a bore.

We are treated to a tedious hour’s worth of back-story, which probably would have been more interesting if someone would have just stood up and read the comic book out loud. The origin of many of Batman’s gadgets and trademark iconography are given the utmost attention, but none of it makes for interesting viewing. Eventually I found myself going “Yeah, yeah. I get it. It all fits together like a big puzzle.” Here’s where the Bat cave was found. Here’s where the Bat signal originated. Here’s where the Batmobile first hit the streets. Too much time is spent on exposition and explanation. If there had been someone at the helm with a real understanding of film history and cinema in general, this prequel could have been less like a life sentence and more like a movie.

The film is peopled, once again, like so many other recent entries in the superhero genre, with young faces that look fresh out of high school, but are given the roles of adults. Katie Holmes is the beautiful district attorney, a necessary cliché in this tiresome series. Cillian Murphy looks silly alright as the wacko Scarecrow. Gary Oldman also looks bad here as a young Commissioner Gordon. Liam Neeson is equally lame in his part as is Michael Caine. I’ve liked some of these actors in other films, but here they are handled with no real understanding. They all do their best to play their parts, but Christopher Nolan is not equal to the talent that surrounds him.

Fight scenes are so quick and edited like a bad MTV video that you are asked to assume that Batman has done his job once again. The whole affair felt so desperate and unoriginal that I could barely sit through the massive two plus hours it took to tell. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it sure has to be more entertaining than this. The script has the subtlety and nuance of an Alice Cooper song. The cinematography is lazy and uninspiring. The plot twists are virtually non-existent and the humor has been sucked out of this movie with a giant Bat-vac.

Batman purists are gaga about this latest sighting of the Bat signal. Personally, I don’t get it. It takes more than an expensive budget to make a great film. It takes real vision and artistic talent to pull that off. This turkey has neither.