i will not lie -- i'm a huge batman nerd, and have been since childhood.

batman has always been my favorite superhero. he was the easiest for me to identify with out of all of the other superheros that i was aware of at the time. he wasn't a mutant or an alien or anything. he was a human -- bruce wayne was human. sure, he had ungodly amounts of money to fund his desire to bring justice to gotham, but he didn't have any special powers that regular people couldn't find within themselves. that's what i really liked... his powers came from himself. that always struck me as incredibly poignant.

i looked up to batman as a kid. i really did. i remember in sixth grade we had to write down two heros we had -- one that we knew, one that we didn't. i put "my dad" and "batman." (i got a lot of shit for it, too.) in eleventh grade, i wrote a paper on how batman was the most believable superhero. (it's a good thing my english teacher was understanding, because that wasn't even close to the original assignment.)

and then came the movies.

the first "batman" movie was great. michael keaton was a good batman as well as a good bruce wayne. the city of gotham was full of thugs and criminals. jack nicholson was brilliant as the joker. and prince did the music. (you know how much prince means to me.)

the second one, "batman returns," was better. dark, scary, and gritty, true to the comics. less joking around (no pun intended). devito and pfeiffer were excellent. that was truly a great movie.

"batman forever" was a different movie altogether. it started to get campier. brighter. and it was a good movie for what it was trying to be. i liked it very much, and i still do. jim carrey and tommy lee jones were perfect in what they did, and while he wasn't as good as keaton, val kilmer wasn't bad. but it was all wrong. this was not what batman was supposed to be.

"batman & robin" is something i find difficulty talking about. it was abysmal. absolutely awful. campy as hell, horrible casting, terrible writing, and don't even get me started on arnold. the entire city of gotham changed from gangster-era architecture and thugs with old-school machine guns to space-age statues and colorful freaks drag racing in the graffitied streets. that is not batman, goddamn it. everything was so wrong. it was so so so wrong.

when i first got wind of a new batman movie, my heart sunk. they were going to milk this for all it was worth, and seeing the last two steps the batman franchise had taken, i didn't think i could handle it. once i heard it was a "prequel" i became more upset because prequels to established stories don't usually bode very well (with the possiblity of "star wars" being the exception).

when the cast was announced, i got a bit more excited. christian bale. liam neeson. michael caine. morgan freeman. cillian murphy. gary oldman. then the promo pictures leaked. bits of the storyline came through the wires. the trailer debuted. the reviews were great. "this had better be fucking amazing," i said, and i meant it. everything was building up my level of anticipation to something that couldn't possibly be reached.

i went into the midnight showing tonight with expectations so high that i thought for sure i would walk out crying in despair.

my expectations were met and -- dare i say -- exceeded.

this movie was sheer perfection. art. brilliance.

i haven't really been able to form a complete sentence summing up my feelings about this movie. it was so good that i want to cry. the good name of "batman" has been restored.












see it.
love it.

i need to sleep because i have an interview tomorrow.

batman.