The movie opens up with a bat symbol against an amber colored backdrop and a million bats flying across the screen like they’re pissed at something. This is a much cooler bat-symbol than the old one with the yellow oval, which has kind of become campy, like that old Adam West TV show. Anyway, here it is.

The first scene is a flashback to when Bruce Wayne was a kid, and pay attention because when a movie opens up with a flashback, almost everything they say and do will mean something later on. Young Bruce steals an Indian arrowhead from a chick named Rachel and then falls down what looks like a well, although you’d think whoever tried to dig a well would have known that there were these massive caves down there, but whatever. Bruce falls down a well and Rachel goes to get Thomas Wayne, Bruce’s dad. Then a million bats fly right at Bruce's face and it totally freaks him out. Bats are pretty disgusting so it’s hard to blame him.

Then a grown-up Bruce Wayne wakes up in a prison in some vague, random Asian country. He has a beard, which is cool. He gets in a fight with six guys and beats the crap out of them all, and you even hear bones cracking. The guards take him away, for “protection”. When Bruce says he doesn’t need protection, they say it’s for their protection, looking at the other guys, who are writhing in the mud.

In the comics, Bruce Wayne became obsessed with justice at a very young age and he traveled around the world learning how to fight evil. Like, he went to the greatest detective in the world to learn detective skills, and the greatest kung fu master to learn kung fu, and the greatest escape artist in the world and the greatest chemist in the world. So I assume at this point that he’s in prison because he wants to learn how the criminal mind works and what motivates them and how they live.

So this dude approaches him in prison and has a conversation with him about what he’s doing and how he’s never going to get anywhere just studying and understanding criminals. Or something like that. Maybe Bruce hadn’t really thought it through, like once he understands criminals, then what? Whatever the reason, this English dude tells him there’s a better way: Ras Al Ghul and the League of Shadows. It’s not clear whether or not Bruce has heard of the League of Shadows, but he kind of dismisses them as vigilantes at first. But the dude tells him to go to this one mountain and pick a “rare blue flower” and carry it all the way up the mountain, which is what he does.

Apparently, there are these vaguely Asian people who live on the side of the mountain but that’s weird to me because I can’t imagine what they do for a living. Maybe they raise goats or something. Anyway, Bruce kind of passes through the village on his way up, and you think that it’s important that there’s a village there and that it’ll play some role in the story later on, and you’re right because it does.

At the top of the mountain there’s this vaguely Eastern religiony kind of temple and an Asian guy with this weird droopy mustache sitting in a chair. Bruce calls him Ras Al Ghul and no one contradicts him, or says “No, that dude is the butler” or anything. The first time I saw this, I thought how weird it was because I always thought Rhas Al Ghul is supposed to be vaguely Middle Eastern and not vaguely Asian.

Liam Neeson comes in and asks Bruce these vague, open-ended questions that you know he’s going to get wrong. Any time a Buddhist or a therapist asks you something like “What are you seeking?” you know that you’re never going to give an answer that they like. And they say that there’s no wrong answer, but you know there sure are some stupid answers. It’s all so they can be so superior and all-knowing and guide you to this conclusion that they had in mind the whole time. It’s so annoying. And it doesn’t help that the guy is British either. British people think they know everything.

Bruce hands him the blue flower and Liam Neeson has this expression on his face like “Isn’t that cute? You brought me a flower” and I keep thinking what an ass he is. I mean, he told him to bring the flower up the mountain, and then asks him why he came? Because you told him to, dickhead. He’s so superior. If I didn’t already know that Ras Al Ghul is a bad guy and that the League of Shadows were a bunch of douche bags, I would still hate them.

They fight. British dude says something about fear.

Bruce’s dad goes down the well, or the cave or whatever it is, and brings him back up. I guess it’s impressive that a bajillionaire would do that himself and not get one of his hired hands to do it for him, except that this guy apparently only has two people working for him, even though his home is the size of two or three resort hotels. There’s Alfred, and there’s Rachel’s mom, who we never see and don’t know what her job is. Maybe he doesn’t have that many people working for him as a way of showing solidarity with the working class, though it seems to me that they would probably rather have jobs than to feel good about who Thomas Wayne is. Maybe he’s just cheap.

Thomas teaches Bruce that everything is afraid of something. I’m sensing a theme.

The next scene shows them riding on a subway, which I’m sure lots of billionaires do, especially when it’s a subway that they themselves built. I’m sure that happens all the time, too, in every major city in the United States there are billionaires who fund public transportation  He says that the trains unite the city and at the center is Wayne Tower. It sounds like something that will come up later on.

At the opera, Bruce freaks out about these guys dressed as bats. I don’t know if there really is such an opera, but if there is I’m pretty sure it sucks. Anyway he asks his dad if they can leave, and his dad is like, ok. For some reason they leave by the service entrance in back, where there’s this dirty alley with garbage and rats.

Why is there even an opera house in a neighborhood like this? Why don’t they leave out the front door? Why would any of these people even live in Gotham City? Anyway, they leave out the back door and for some reason they’re surprised that a guy shoots and kills them. I’m surprised they’ve managed to stay alive as long as they have, given that they ride subways wearing all their furs and jewels, and hang out in dark alleys.

There’s a brief scene in a police station that’s only important because it’s where you see Gordon for the first time, and someone comes through and tells Bruce that they caught the guy who did it. I don’t know that it would really be any comfort to an eight year old.

Funeral. It’s appropriately rainy. Then this really creepy guy says “You’re in excellent hands. We’ll be watching the empire. When you grow up, it’ll be waiting for you.” First of all, I know that that’s no comfort to an eight year old who just watched his parents gunned down like dogs in the street, but second of all, if he’s got any sense, even an eight year old wouldn’t trust this guy.

Bruce is up in his room looking out the window, waving goodbye to Rachel. Still hasn’t said a word. Alfred comes in and offers to “prepare supper”. Would a butler even do that? I keep forgetting that he’s the only one who works there. Then Bruce says that he blames himself and Alfred assures him that it wasn’t his fault.

Bruce: My anger outweighs my guilt.

British dude: You have learned to bury your guilt with anger. I will teach you to blah blah blah…fight six hundred men , turn invisible blah blah blah…ninja stuff, exploding powder

Inside the temple, there’s a criminal in a cage, a guy who murdered someone. How did he get there? How do they know he’s guilty? It seems more like a zoo than a prison. But whatever. These guys are just freaky weird.

Outisde on the ice, British dude tells Bruce that Thomas Wayne’s death was his own fault. No shit. He says that it’s because Thomas failed to act, that training is nothing, that will is everything! Who is this Will guy? *drum roll* Thank you! I’m here all week!

Bruce falls through the ice. They cut to a campfire scene, and British dude is talking about anger and grief and his dead wife. He ends by saying “Why did you not avenge your parents?”

It's many years later and Bruce is back home from Princeton. It’s still so sad. Back at Wayne Manor, all the furniture is covered in sheets and it’s so dark and quiet, not full of life and love like it was when his parents were alive. Worse, Alfred still lives there! Geez, what does this guy do all day? He’s like Norm from Cheers. Bruce is just in town for “the hearing” and it must have something to do with his parents’ death because apparently Bruce never thinks about anything else.

Has this guy had any kind of therapy or grief counseling? It’s not like he can’t afford it. And I’m going to assume that Alfred is his guardian, which is one more bizarre thing that Bruce’s dad did, but Alfred seems like a sensible guy, at least enough to know that this kid would need some help. I know it’s traumatic, but geez.

They argue about the house. As usual, Bruce is wrong, and he learns something from Alfred, that the house is important and he has to keep it up.

Rachel’s there. I don’t know why, but she’s in the kitchen and has made herself at home. She’s just kind of standing there, all grown up, being played by Katie Holmes. She’s so pretty! I read somewhere that she only acts with half her face, you know, because she has that lop-sided grin. I can’t watch her without thinking about scientology and Tom Cruise climbing all over Oprah’s couch like a monkey in heat. But anyway.

She doesn’t want Bruce to come to “the hearing”. Rachel’s boss is the DA and he cut a deal with Chill (the guy who killed Bruce’s parents) to testify against his former cellmate, Falcone (You pronounce that FAL-CONE-EE). It’s an Italian name so we can assume he’s a mobster.

In court, we learn that Chill was hit hard by “the Depression”. We all remember the Depression that hit in the early 90’s, don’t we? Shut up. Just watch.

Chill says he’s sorry. When it’s Bruce’s turn to speak he just gets up and leaves. He’s outside when Chill leaves the courtroom and he’s got a .38 in the sleeve of his jacket, but before he can use it, someone else guns him down. Rachel and Bruce leave.

This is what’s so awesome about this movie, and why it’s so different from any of the other Batman movies. Because any other movie would show Batman as a kid doing all the stuff that Batman would do, always being right, always kicking ass, always just being Batman. But in this movie, he has to learn how to be Batman. He makes bonehead choices like bringing a gun into a courtroom (luckily, Gotham courtrooms have no metal detectors). He’s a dumb ass like everyone else, just so overwhelmed with grief and anger and fear and all these other thoughts and emotions that he doesn’t know what to do with. He’s like a real dude.

In the car on the way home, Bruce tells Rachel he’s happy that Chill is dead. Rachel acts shocked and gets all moral and starts talking about revenge is bad and wrong and blah blah blah. Bruce shows her the gun he had and she slaps him. Then she thinks about it and slaps him again. I was thinking it would be really funny if he shot her at this point, even by accident, but he doesn’t. Rachel takes Bruce to a restaurant where FAL-CONE-EE, the mob boss, eats his spaghetti and rigatoni and calls people paisan.

Bruce throws his gun in the river and goes in to the restaurant and sits with Falcone. Falcone tells Bruce how powerful he is and could just blow him away right here in front of all the judges and cops in the place. Basically he just tells Bruce that he’s a rich prettyboy who’s too stupid to even be afraid, that he doesn’t understand how criminals think and the world they live in, and then he has Bruce thrown out in the street. Before he does, you see sitting at the next table the judge who had just allowed Chill to walk. Which tells me that he’s corrupt and that it was a part of Falcone’s plan to get Chill released so that they could gun him down.

This is crucial because up to this point, Bruce has just had this undirected rage at injustice. It was the injustice and corruption that killed his parents and ruined his life. He had no idea what to do about it, or that it wouldn’t be as easy as shooting the guy who did it, or facing down a mob boss. He’s still a long way from wanting to dress like a bat and go out at night and beat people up, but at least now he knows that he can’t fight them until he understands them.

ANYWAY….

On the street, Bruce gives a homeless guy a whole bunch of money for his jacket. The homeless guy takes it. Before he can burn his own coat, homeless dude asks if he can have it. Bruce is like “Be careful who sees you in it. They’re going to come looking for me.”

HOMELESS DUDE: Who?

BRUCE: Everyone.

When Bruce takes off the coat, it’s like he’s shedding his skin. The coat represents all that he was before, everything that he’s giving up to begin his journey. He doesn’t even know where he’s going, he just gets on a freighter and leaves.

We see scenes of Bruce living like a beggar, stealing food so that he won’t starve. In voiceover, he talks to British dude about all that he learned living as a criminal, compassion, right and wrong, the fear, the thrill…but that he never became one of them. That’s because the stuff he was stealing all belonged to Wayne Enterprises.

Ok, remember the rare blue flower? It’s all dried out now, and British dude just crushed it all up in a bowl and he’s burning it and telling Bruce to breathe it in. Bruce does. He starts seeing bats everywhere, and all the ninja dudes enter the room.

OK, this makes a lot of sense now. The flower makes you see the thing you fear the most. Say, if you were afraid of cows, you couldn’t bring ten cows up the mountain. But you could bring this flower that makes you see cows. And if you face your worst fear and still beat the crap out of ten ninja dudes, you can be Batman or something. They fight. Bruce kicks ass.

The Asian dude who says he’s Ras Al Ghul is impressed. They ask him to join the League of Shadows. And, hey, remember that guy in the cage who murdered someone? They tell Bruce to kill him. It’s so weird that the dude never cries or begs or struggles at all. What does he have to lose? Maybe he’s got this zen kind of thing going on.

Bruce refuses. British dude says his compassion is a weakness that his enemies won’t share. Bruce says that’s why it’s so important. They go back and forth like in a Presidentail Debate:

But he’s a murderer!

But he should be tried!

But the system is corrupt!

You are!

No, you are!

Shut up!

You shut up!

They don't really say that.

Then the Asian dude tells Bruce that he has to kill the murderer dude, so that Bruce can lead the League of Shadows when they destroy Gotham City, because it’s corrupt like Constantinople (not Istanbul) or Rome. Bruce is like, screw this. And he burns the place down.

He does save the life of the British dude, and leaves him unconscious with some random old man in the village that’s farther down the mountain. I told you it would be important.

There is a psychiatrist giving testimony in court to have some criminal dude committed instead of being put in jail. Several people in this movie have been creepy, but this guy is the worst. He’s pale and has these giant glasses on and he speaks in a monotone, very quiet and calm. He looks like the kind of guy who smells like sour milk, and his mom probably made him wear a dress til he was ten.

Guess who’s prosecuting the case? If you guessed Rachel, you were right. She’s the only one left in Gotham who really cares. And she gets all up in Dr. Milky’s shit about having all of these mob guys declared insane. Rachel’s boss tries to warn her that it's not good to make waves with these mob guys. Rachel’s boss is not corrupt, he’s just a pussy.

There’s a bat loose in the house. Bruce is kind of watching it and it looks like he’s thinking “Hey, there’s a bat loose in the house.” Apparently, he’s conquered his fear of bats, and doesn’t even try to open a window or anything. Alfred kind of goes “They nest somewhere in the grounds” but he doesn’t try to open a window either. I think at this point in their relationship, Alfred doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to do, but still. It’s a bat.

Bruce knows where they nest. It’s that cave under the house. He goes down there and all these bats fly out and swirl all around him like a tornado. It’s pretty cool. He just stands there with his eyes closed and you can tell he’s freaking out a little bit. For some reason it reminds me of a baptism.

This is where it all comes together. He’s had all his training in kung fu and stuff, he’s rejected the path of vengeance and the League of Shadows, and he understands the criminal mind. Now he has the bat symbol. He’s ready to kick some ass.

Dr. Milky is telling Falcone that he won’t do him any more “favors” which I assume he won't be testifying in court for Falcone’s thugs anymore. Falcone is pissed, but Dr. Milky reminds him of the “operation” and that the dude that he works for will be pissed if Falcone endangers their “operation”. Falcone says that he’s bringing in their drugs, but Dr. Milky says he won’t testify anymore because Rachel is making noise about it. Falcone makes a vague threat about taking care of her.

In the boardroom, Mr. Earle makes a big scene because he wants to run the company his way, make his own rules, and not have to do things the way that Thomas Wayne would have. Earle is such a baby. Seriously, all he's missing is a rattle and a diaper.

Bruce comes into the outer office and flirts with the secretary

Mr. Earle gets pissed that the secretary isn’t answering the phone and finds Bruce teaching her how to play golf. She's got the putter in her hands and he's standing behind her with his arms around her, helping her swing (if you know what I mean *wink *wink*). Dude’s been in the office like 3 minutes and he has the secretary up playing golf with him? That’s a harassment lawsuit waiting to happen.

EARLE: You’re supposed to be dead!

BRUCE: Sorry to disappoint.

Come on, dude. I could think of 20 better comebacks than that. Why not the classic “I got better”..?

Earle is giving Bruce some champagne, of course, because captains of industry are all raging alcoholics. Bruce doesn’t care if the company goes public, but he wants Earle to give him a job in “Applied Sciences” with Lucius Fox. Earle welcomes Bruce back into the fold and tells him "This is where you belong” and holds his glass up in a toast, but I still think he’s a dickhead. Isn’t it funny that movies can make you hate characters for no reason at all? The guy hasn’t even done anything bad.

Down at Applied Sciences, Bruce is looking over some “prototypes”. Is there a reason that none of this stuff is in production? Has any of it even been tested? Why do superheroes always get the stuff that everyone else has decided won’t work? To be fair, Bruce does ask Lucius about the Kevlar suit, and Lucius says that the government doesn’t think the life of a soldier is worth $300,000. Not to be all blindly patriotic and everything, but the Pentagon pays at least that much for a hammer. I don’t think they’d blink at that price tag.

Here we find out that Lucius Fox is an old friend of Bruce’s dad, that he helped design the train system, and that the trains, all the water and all the power is routed right into Wayne Tower, making it the “unofficial center of Gotham City”. There’s a joke in there somewhere, I just can’t think of it now. But it does seem to me that if Wayne Tower is at the geographic center of the city, and if all the water and power is centered on the building, then there's nothing unofficial about it.

Bruce gets the Kevlar suit and goes down into the caves underneath his house with Alfred. Alfred tells him that his great-grandfather was involved in the Underground Railroad before the Civil War, “secretly transporting slaves up North”. By “North” I’m hoping he means Canada, because slaves weren’t any better off in the Northern U.S. than they were in the Southern U.S. But he gets a pass because he’s British. Though I do wonder how he knows so much about the Wayne family. It’s almost starting to seem kind of gay.

Bruce sets up a workshop and spray-paints his Kevlar suit. Alfred comes up with some pretty elaborate financial schemes to buy the pieces for Bruce’s equipment. I didn’t realize that butler’s were so financially astute. But I suppose when you’re embezzling millions from your employer you would get used to that.

Gordon is out on patrol with his partner, Flass. I think the name is as close as they could get to actually naming him “Fat Ass”, but Flass is very enormous and sloppy and as crooked as he can be. Even though this is the first time we see him, I’m sure he’ll die in some humiliating way before the movie is over. They have a conversation that lets us know that Gordon is a good cop but frustrated by all the corruption in the city

Bruce is on the roof of some random building wearing all of his suit except the cowl. He’s got a ski mask, though, which is almost as good.

Gordon goes into his office and sits at his desk. The lights flicker. He hears a click and then a voice saying “Don’t turn around.” Gordon looks like he’s about to crap his pants. I’m wondering how wise it is to approach him like this, in a city this corrupt I would think an honest cop like Gordon would have a hair trigger.

Bruce asks him about Falcone and they talk about bringing him down and blah blah blah. Bruce jumps out the window and goes up on the roof. Gordon runs up the stairs and chases him with a gun, but Bruce jumps off the roof and slams into the fire escape on the building across the street. That’s really got to hurt. But it’s another thing I really like about this movie, that he’s imperfect and he makes mistakes and has bruises.

Lucius Fox has this fabric that looks like regular fabric but when you pass a current through it, it becomes rigid. They can make any shape they want to out of it. I wonder if they can make wings out of it?

Oh, and he has this really fast tank thing that for some reason he hadn’t mentioned before when Bruce asked him what he did down there.

Flass meets with Falcone, they discuss killing Rachel. Bruce is listening in from a remote location. Did I miss him planting a bug on one of them? Whatever…

Alfred is hitting Bruce’s Batman mask with a crowbar, and it breaks into pieces. It looks like he’s working out some pent-up aggression. Then he makes a joke about Bruce not landing on his head. He’s so passive-aggressive, Bruce puts together his costume and works on his batarangs and throwing stars shaped like bats. It’s like Tool Time.

Flass is at the docks with Falcone. There are guys unloading drugs in stuffed animals. Half the drugs go to “The Narrows” and half to the dealers.

There’s a clank and a guy disappears. Then all the lights go out and Batman attacks. It’s an awesome scene. Of course they all try to shoot him, and, of course, they all die. Falcone tries to run, but Batman grabs him. Before he disappears, there’s the homeless dude still wearing Bruce’s old coat.

Now, it may seem like a throwaway line when he says "Nice coat," but remember what I said the coat represents? That's his old life, and the choices he didn't make: Not that Bruce would literally have been homeless, but just that his life would have been pointless and irrelevant.

Rachel’s riding the subway. She gets off and is accosted by two guys. Batman appears. Falcone sent these guys to kill you. He gives her pictures of the corrupt judge and some apparently underage chick, and tells her to keep "rattling the cages"....Wait, where did he get those pictures? Did I miss a scene?

Gordon shows up at the docks. Falcone is strapped to one of those huge searchlights. And it looks kind of like the bat-signal. Wouldn’t he be on fire or something? I mean, regular light bulbs get hot, but damn.

Back at the police station, the ineffective bureaucrat running things wants Batman caught. No one takes the law into their own hands in my city and blah blah blah this is an outrage!

Rachel is telling her boss that they can finally put Falcone away. Meanwhile, he’s still a pussy.

The next day, Alfred is waking Bruce up at 3:00 in the afternoon. Bruce drinks some disgusting green stuff and has bruises all over his arms and chest, and Alfred suggests that he may have to come up with a way to explain those injuries, like….polo.

Polo? WTF?

Good plan, Alfred. Except that would require hanging out with other guys who play polo. And that would mean that there are other guys who play polo. In Gotham City, maybe those are the same ones who go into the ghetto to watch operas about bats.

He does have a point though. How does Bruce Wayne explain away mysterious injuries? Who sets his broken bones? What if he needs reconstructive surgery?

They continue to discuss the mechanics of having a secret identity, and how billionaire playboys are supposed to “drive sports cars and date movie stars”.  Maybe there’s something to this secret identity thing after all.

Someone stole a microwave emitter off a cargo ship. It’s a “prototype”. Again, that word means “advanced” and not, as it would in reality, that it doesn’t really work. It’s a weapon to vaporize the enemies’ water supply. That sounds doable.

The damage to the ship itself was “catastrophic” and all the crew is “missing, probably dead”. First of all, how catastrophic could the damage have been if the ship didn’t sink? And why would you say that the crew was probably dead if they were missing off a ship in the middle of the ocean?

Maybe Aquaman saved them.

Partyboy Bruce shows up at a fancy-schmancy restaurant with two hot chicks. He sits down with some snooty rich people who are discussing (what else?) Batman. Some of them like Batman. Bruce says that anyone who dresses like a bat “clearly has issues.” That’s what I said! He should have had some grief counseling.

Hot chicks go swimming naked in the restaurant’s “decorative pool”. Wouldn’t that water be all disgusting and smelly? They don’t put chlorine in decorative pools. Bruce sheepishly explains that they're "European". That would explain it, Bruce. Maybe he's embarrassed that they haven't shaved their pits. Anyway, he tips everyone in sight and as he leaves, he sees Rachel coming in.

Wait, who is she there to meet? I guess it doesn’t matter, but it doesn’t even seem like she knows anyone else. This is the first time they’ve seen each other since Bruce got back from that vaguely Asian country where he learned Kung Fu and shit. He kind of stammers about what he’s doing there, because he really cares what Rachel thinks of him. She says “It’s not who you are underneath. It’s what you do that defines you.”

That sounds like a line someone will use later.

Bruce watches her go, thinking

1. God, I wish she knew the real me!
2. Damn she's hot! or
3. Bitch!

Dr. Milky, thanks for coming in. Falcone is here and he tried to slit his wrists. And…oh, yeah, he knows all your dirty secrets about those “experiments” you do with the inmates. That sounds vaguely gay, but it is enough to piss off Dr. Milky. He and Falcone continue to discuss Milky’s mysterious boss. Milky puts on a scarecrow mask and sprays Falcone with some weird dust. Falcone freaks out and starts screaming.

Wait a minute….doesn’t this seem a lot like the blue flower dust that makes you face your worst fear?

Batman has a conversation with Gordon about the drugs that were being shipped in, and why only half of them were going to the dealers. They agree that Flass would know.

GORDON: Flass won’t talk

BATMAN: He’ll talk to me.

Meanwhile, Flass is stealing Falafel from a foreign dude with a cart. Try saying that three times fast. Batman catches him in an alley in one of those bear trap things that hangs you upside-down three stories up.

Wait, how did Batman know that Flass would be walking down that exact alley and that no one else would be around to witness it? My dumb friend Dan would say that if you study Kung Fu, you can see the future, but he thinks Asian people can fly.

Flass tells him that the drugs went to the Narrows for a couple of days before they went to the dealers. They were putting something extra in the drugs. Or maybe they were taking something out of the drugs? Something blue?

At the docks, Rachel’s boss is getting some customs guys to open up an “extra” container on one of Falcone’s ships. He’s really brave now that Falcone is out of the picture. Can you guess what was in the crate? If you didn’t guess microwave emitter, you’ve never watched a movie before ever. The customs guy shoots him in the back with a rifle that makes surprisingly little noise.

Batman is on a rooftop in the slums somewhere, and I’m guessing this is “The Narrows” that everyone keeps talking about. Some random kid on a fire escape sees him and whines that the other kids won’t believe him, so Batman throws him something. I don’t see what it is, but it doesn’t seem really wise to be passing out stuff that could potentially be traced back to you.

Dr. Milky and some nameless goons come into this apartment where some of the drugs were and he’s like “Get rid of all traces” and they’re like “Torch the whole place” and start pouring gasoline out all over. Batman’s shadow is in the corner.

Now, how did he know exactly what building to go to? How is it that he’s there at exactly the right time?

Batman comes in to stop the dudes from setting the building on fire, but Dr. Milky puts on his scarecrow mask and shoots him with the fear dust. Not content to watch him freak out, he also douses him with gasoline and sets him on fire. Bruce jumps out the window, rolls around until the fire is out, then calls Alfred to come get him.

There are so many things wrong with this scene that I can’t count them. How did he put the fire out? How did he survive a five-story fall onto concrete? Why doesn’t anyone help him? Or even rob him blind while he’s unconscious?

But, logistics aside, doesn’t this mean that the Scarecrow was able to burn down that entire building with all the people still in it? Is there going to be some scene later on when Bruce is all grim-faced about the lives that were lost because he was unprepared?

Maybe that’ll be in the deleted scenes on the Ultra-Special DVD.

After a brief flashback of his dad pulling him out of that well, and after I wonder for about the twentieth time if he ever dreams about anything else (like, say…women?), Bruce wakes up in his bedroom. The first thing he says is “How long was I out?” to which Alfred replies “Two days. It’s your birthday.”

Bruce brushes that aside. He doesn’t have time for trivialities like birthdays. Or food. Because he’s just now figuring out what we’ve known all along, that Scarecrow’s fear gas is the same stuff that Ras Al Ghul used in the beginning of the movie.

Lucius Fox walks in and Alfred explains that he called Mr. Fox after Bruce’s condition worsened after the first day. Now this is interesting because I suppose Alfred didn’t feel that he could call a doctor without giving away Bruce’s identity, which begs the question: What if Bruce had to go to the hospital? What if he died? I guess if he was dead, it wouldn’t matter who knew that he was secretly Batman, but if Alfred didn’t seek medical care and Bruce died, that would be called Depraved Indifference. Or Criminal Negligence. Or something like that. Anyway, it would on Law & Order.

Fox says “I analyzed your blood, isolating the receptor compounds and the protein-based catalyst.” Bruce pretends not to know what that means, but you know he's already studied under the greatest doctors in the universe. But two things:

First of all, does this guy Lucius Fox know everything? He’s an engineer and a mathematician and he develops weapons and now he’s a molecular biochemist? He’s like Jimmy Neutron.

Second of all, sure all that lab work is impressive, but did anyone administer anything even resembling medical care while Bruce was unconscious for two freakin’ days? Even take his temperature or prop his feet up?

Bottom line is that Fox made an antidote to the fear gas, and he can make more.

Rachel is dropping off a present for Bruce, but she can’t stay because her boss has been missing for two days, and Dr. Milky has moved Falcone to Arkham Asylum on a suicide watch. I’m having trouble understanding why either of those is a bad thing.

Bruce opens his present from Rachel. It’s the Indian arrowhead that they were fighting over in the very opening scene of the movie.

Bruce watches her drive off, then rushes to the batcave to put on his Batman uniform. Maybe they cut out the scene where he ran into the kitchen first, seeing as how he hasn’t eaten in at least two days.

In the basement where Lucius Fox works, Earle asks Fox about the microwave emitter and tells him that he wants all the data on the development of the project on his desk right away. Fox gives him a know-it-all look and asks “Did you lose one?” which is a really odd question to ask because, first of all, dude, that’s your boss, and second of all, why would you even think that? It could be that he’s taunting him because he knows that one was stolen, but how could he possibly know that? No one else knows yet, not even Bruce or Alfred. Rachel’s boss knew, right before he was killed, but that’s it, besides Earle himself, and the bad guys, and probably some higher-ups in the company.

Anyway, Earle says “I’m merging your department with archives, bee-yotch!”

Now, I know that Earle is a big douche bag, but why does he hate Lucius Fox, and why take such obvious pleasure in firing him?

Falcone is in a strait-jacket and mumbling "Scarecrow...Scarecrow..." over and over. This is just in case anyone has any doubts left as to which of Batman's rogue's gallery Dr. Milky was supposed to be. Rachel is watching Falcone from the hallway, obviously thinking that he's faking.

She confronts Dr. Milky about Falcone’s apparent psychotic break. I still don’t understand why she even cares. When Rachel asks Milky what scarecrow means, he says “Patients suffering delusional episodes often focus their paranoia on an external tormentor, usually one conforming to Jungian archetypes, bee-yotch!”

Rachel’s not buying it. Dude takes her down to the basement, which she doesn’t find unusual at all, until he shows her all these thugs dumping the fear drug into the water pipes underneath the hospital. When she tries to run, he drugs her.

Batman shows up. He seriously beats the crap out of everyone in the room, then he drugs Dr. Milky with the fear gas and gets him to tell him who he’s working. Are you surprised to find out that it’s Ras Al Ghul? If you are, you probably have never seen a movie before ever.

Batman thinks Ras Al Ghul is dead, and doesn’t believe him. But seriously, where else would he get that name from? It’s not a common name you would just make up on the spot.

The cops show up. No one wants to go in, except Gordon. He’s not afraid. And the SWAT team.

Batman tells Gordon that Rachel is drugged and he needs to get her out of there. He also tells Gordon that Dr. Milky is smuggling the fear toxin into the city inside Falcone’s drugs and dumping it into the water supply. Why? They don’t know.

Gordon takes Rachel out the back, and Batman calls a million bats to fly into the building and freak everyone out. I saw this once on Super Friends, except it was Aquaman, and it was fish.

Gordon gets Rachel into the batmobile. Batman drives Rachel to the batcave. I just summed up in two sentences a fifteen minute car chase. In the batcave, Bruce gives Rachel two vials of the antidote and tells her, when she wakes up, give one to Gordon to inoculate himself, and one to mass produce. I’m going to assume that he’s going to take her home, because apparently there are no hospitals or doctors in Gotham City.

(Gotham is apparently not at all like Smallville, where people go into the hospital every freakin' episode. Seriously, I bet Clark and Lex have their own parking spaces there)

While Bruce is putting on his tuxedo, he and Alfred argue about what it is he’s trying to accomplish. Alfred says that Bruce is thrill-seeking and trying to prove things to people; Bruce says he’s trying to help people the way his father did. Bruce tells Alfred to take Rachel home.

Let me just interject here: It’s not like this fear gas has been through all the clinical trials and FDA approvals, and all the after-effects have been catalogued and measured. Bruce doesn’t even know what kind of dose Rachel got. How do they know she hasn't suffered permanent brain damage? At least when Bruce OD’ed on the fear gas, someone was there to keep an eye on him. But they just take her and dump her in her bed?? See you in three days, honey! Unless you're dead by then.

Anyway, Bruce says that he has to get rid of all the guests in the house, and Alfred warns him not to destroy his father’s name.

In the ballroom, Bruce asks Earle how the stock offering went. Earle says that the prices soared. Bruce asks who was buying. Earle pinches his cheek and says “Awen’t you pwecious??” Just kidding. But he does say “All kinds of funds and brokerages; it’s a bit technical. The key thing is, our company’s future is secure.”

Bruce doesn’t punch him in the face.

Bruce meets up with Lucius Fox, and tells him about the fear drug in the water supply. Fox tells him it won’t be effective in the water supply, because the drug has to be inhaled to have any effect. Then he tells Bruce about the microwave emitter that Wayne Industries “misplaced” and that Earle had just fired him for “asking too many questions about it”. He leaves out the part where he was being all smart-ass and taunting Earle about losing a weapon of mass destruction. Bruce tells Fox to go back to Wayne Enterprises and start “making more of the antidote”.

An older woman approaches him and says “Bruce, there’s somebody here you simply must meet…Am I pronouncing this right? Mr. Ras…AHL…GHOOL…?”

A Chinese dude turns around looking really pissed. Apparently she didn’t pronounce it right. Bruce is like, “You’re not Ras Al Ghul. I watched him die.”

Let me interrupt here because Batman is supposed to be this great detective, but this is the third time someone has told him that Ras Al Ghul is alive, and none of the people who told him knew each other or had any reason to lie about it. So why is he surprised that someone is telling him Ras Al Ghul is alive?

ANYWAY....

“But is Ras Al Ghul immortal?” says a voice. It belongs to…..that British dude. Is anyone reading this surprised? In the comics, Ras Al Ghul is kind of immortal. He has this Lazarus Pit that he bathes in that keeps him young. Or something like that.

Ras knows that Bruce is Batman. Bruce asks him not to hurt all the other partygoers, and Ras says he’s welcome to explain it to them. So Bruce acts drunk and insults everyone and tells them to get the hell out.

That works every time. I know. Trust me.

Ras tells Bruce that his plan is to release the fear gas and watch Gotham tear itself apart. He says the League of Shadows has been a check against human corruption for thousands of years. They sacked Rome, caused the Plague, burned London to the ground. I wonder if they used to manage the Sex Pistols and produce shows like Rent. They do sound like dickheads though, and I wonder what civilization was ever ok with them? Was there ever a city or a technology that they liked? They sound kind of like Amish terrorists, or the Unabomber or something.

Bruce tells Ras that he can still save Gotham if they give him a chance.

There’s a brief scene where we see police letting all the inmates out of Arkham Asylum, including the Scarecrow. Why? Because they all work for Ras Al Ghul.

Ras tells Bruce that Bruce was his greatest student, and wants Bruce to join him on the Dark Side. Bruce tells him “I’ll never join you!” The League of Shadows guys start to pour gas all over the place, while Ras tells Bruce that they tried to destroy Gotham before, by causing the Depression, but that they were thwarted by Thomas Wayne and his efforts to revitalize the city.

See? Now this give the story a bit more depth than we’re used to from superhero movies. It makes the League of Shadows much more menacing, and for the first time in any Batman story, it makes Bruce’s dad more than a paper target. It's shows that Bruce became Batman not just because he watched his parents die, but because of who his parents were and how they taught him before they died.

They fight. Ras traps Bruce under a fallen beam and leaves him for dead. Alfred appears and helps him escape to the batcave.

Ras Al Ghul appears near the Narrows with the microwave emitter. Remember how all the water mains and the power grid and the train system all form a kind of wheel, with Wayne Tower as the hub? Ras is going to load the microwave emitter onto a train, turn it on, and follow the water main back to the hub, vaporizing the entire water supply and causing everyone in Gotham to choke on the fear gas.

Rachel is there, doing something pointless and stupid.

Batman asks Gordon for help, and gives him the keys to the batmobile. Rachel and this random kid are trapped by a gang, but Batman saves them. Before he leaves, she asks his name. He says “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.”

I think this was his clever way of trying to tell her who he was without actually saying it so that the kid could hear. So of course, she blurts out “Bruce?!”

Nice going, dumb ass.

Batman flies away to face Ras Al Ghul. Ras gets four guys to try to kill him. Of course, Batman makes short work of them, but not before Ras gets away on the train. Batman catches him and they fight on the train while Gordon smashes the batmobile into one of the supports. Batman says he won’t kill Ras, but that doesn’t mean he has to save him. The train crashes. Batman jumps off at the last second. Gotham is safe.

Earle walks into a board meeting, where Lucius Fox is handing out papers to everyone at the table. Earle reminds Fox that he fired him. Fox says, “You did. I got another job. Yours.”

Earle calls Bruce and asks him what makes him think that he runs Wayne Enterprises? Bruce says that when the company went public, he bought up all the shares “through various charitable foundations and trusts. It’s all very technical….bee-yotch!!!”

OK, I have to ask, how is Lucius Fox in any way qualified to run a multi-billion dollar conglomerate? He’s like this creepy old science-grokking hermit tinkering with his toys in the basement, then he’s practically a medical doctor, now he knows high finance?

Bruce is hammering a board in the midst of the ruins of Wayne Manor. He looks crisp and fresh and newly-shaven, so he must have just gotten there. Rachel appears and says that she still thinks about him and blah blah blah they kiss.

Rachel: But then I found out about your mask.

Bruce: Batman is just a symbol, Rachel

Rachel: No (she pats his face) this…this is the mask. Your real face is the one that criminals now fear. The man I loved…the man who vanished…he never came back at all. Maybe someday when Gotham no longer needs Batman, I’ll see him again.

This is so totally something that only a chick would say. Everything’s got to be so complicated. I mean, why can't you just say "Dude, you have so much else going on, I don't think I can handle it"...? Why does everything have to be a poem? It's got to be like "I love you but I can't be with you but I want to be with you and this is such a struggle deep in my soul!" and then she has to make up some reason why she can't be with him?

Bruce kind of just looks at her with this meaningful look that says "I know you're right but I wish that things could be different!" when I suspect that underneath it all he's thinking "Whatever!"

He tells Alfred that he intends to rebuild Wayne Manor.

Commissioner Gordon invents the Bat Signal.

The next movie stars the Joker.

The end.