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Originally published June 14, 2005

Word on the street is the new "Batman Begins" is an unusually dark and troubling movie.

This is true. I, for one, was startled to see Gotham City re-imagined as a place full of British actors pretending to be Yanks.

Christian Bale is Bruce Wayne, Gary Oldman is the nascent Commissioner Gordon, the scarecrow is Cillian Murphy. Tom Wilkinson is an organized crime kingpin named Falcone.

In the interest of fair play, it would have been sporting to give an American the role of Alfred the Butler, but Michael Caine gets that one too.

I suppose at this point we could all stomp our feet and declare the whole thing an outrage - these Europeans taking ownership of our treasured cultural institution, much as Manchester United fans have griped about Malcolm Glazer.

But you know what? These Brits? They're all pretty darn good. That list includes Christopher Nolan, the brainy director who qualified for the job of reviving the Warner Bros. moribund franchise by making the ingenious thrillers "Following" and "Memento. "

Credit Warner Bros. with giving Nolan carte blanche to make the movie as twisted and un-commercial as he cared to - offhand, I can't think of another tent-pole production that centers on a bad guy who tries to get an entire city stoned on Tibetan hallucinogenic herbs.

Those who know Nolan's work know his penchant for telling stories in reverse, and " Batman Begins " is in that vein - it loops around behind the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton original and initiates the story with Bruce Wayne's unfortunate childhood.

In the downbeat prologue, young Bruce falls into a cave (it's full of bats; he's traumatized) and breaks his arm, recovering in time to see his parents gunned down in the street. Leap ahead to Bruce as depressed young man, whose desire for revenge leads him on kind of a Downward Bound, globe-trotting adventure to understand the criminal mind. Bruce ends up in a Chinese prison, where a mysterious Englishman, of course, (Liam Neeson) recruits him to train with a secret society of ninja vigilantes.

There Bruce learns the martial arts (it comes in handy later, when he's Batman), but he can't quite make the leap to cold-blooded murder, and thus botches the graduation ceremony.

This is really the crux of the movie: Wayne's internal struggle in reconciling revenge and justice. Wayne's vigilante tutors see mercy as weakness, remorse as a handicap. Wayne says his compassion is the only thing that separates him from the criminals he loathes.

I suppose there's no way to view these themes nowadays without seeing them as some sort of commentary on the post-9/11 psychology. And perhaps to that end, Gotham is painted as a place run by unscrupulous men who keep the populace paranoid and frightened - shades of "The Village. "

Bruce returns to clean up Gotham (alongside foxy DA Katie Holmes), ready at last to live up to the intimidating legacy of his family name (his forbearers combine the best qualities of Lincoln and FDR). He creates Batman to be a galvanizing icon, and arms the caped crusader with hi-tech weaponry (with the help of Wayne Enterprises scientist Morgan Freeman).

Nolan's approach is unusual - you're almost two hours into the movie before Batman confronts the man who turns out to be his primary nemesis. You certainly can't fault the movie for lack of character development - for the most part, that's what it is.

Where Nolan has a tougher time is in meeting the more conventional demands of the summer action blockbuster, and in meeting the inherent outlandishness of the superhero genre halfway.

The gravity of Nolan's characters eventually clash with the gonzo third-act - something about a conspiracy to spread "weaponized" mushrooms into Gotham's fetid air, and you can almost picture Nolan holding his nose while he wrote the details.

Nolan also nearly kills the movie with several drawn-out CGI "action" scenes (the movie pushes 2 1/2 hours) that feature the new Batmobile. It's called the Tumbler, it's a cross between a Hummer and Ferrari, and is more obnoxious than either.

The Big Finish has the Tumbler pursuing a runaway Gotham monorail, and it's every bit as dull as the train chase that concludes the late, unlamented "XXX" sequel.

In all, though, " Batman Begins " is a part of a laudable trend to give comic-based movies a kind of cinematic upgrade - using actors instead of stars, and giving the material to interesting directors. It worked wonderfully for "Spider-Man," didn't work for "The Hulk" but pays solid dividends here.