Throughout the years of the past 2 decades, Batman has been the focus of six movies. The first Batman (simply called 'Batman') was pretty good. Michael Keaton had a good Batman face. The sequel (Batman Returns) wasn't too bad, either, but you could tell it was starting to lose that Batman feeling. Christopher Walken riding on a duck with Danny Devito? Make a face that shows approval with a hint of skepticism, that's me.

 

OK, Tim Burton got a little carried away, so they bring in another director (or something like that, one way or another, Burton out, Joel Schumacher in). New director, new Batman (Batman Forever): Val Kilmer (but Alfred stays). Throw in some good ingredients: Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Seal. But it's like a random selection of good food all thrown into one dish. You end up with a Cheese-covered shrimp (prawn) & Watermelon salad with maple syrup & Twizzlers. Not the greatest all in one spot, or in that scenario.

 

"People like George Clooney from that doctor show, let's make him the next Batman" (Batman & Robin).

They managed to make this one worse than the one prior. The funny thing about this is that the character Bane is in this one. In the comic book, Bane paralyzes Batman by breaking his back. This movie did the same thing for the Batman movie franchise. To try and recover and continue the story would be futile.

 

So the Batman franchise lay dormant for about 8 years. And then, Batman Begins. "Oh, here we go again...what is this, a prequel? Good grief."

But wait. This one was good. And not just *not as bad the other ones* good. Not just *not painful to watch*. It was entertaining. A lot of people I know liked it, most of them said that was the best Batman movie of them all. They rightfully ignored any preexisting storyline that might have survived the disaster of the last couple movies. They scrapped the whole thing and just started from scratch. Everything is new, including Alfred (No! Oh, but it's Michael Caine... Oh...well, yeah, that's awesome).

 

The end of Batman Begins hinted toward another movie at some point in the future. That point comes in July 2008 with The Dark Knight. There's a few trailers and stuff out there at the moment, and here's an article with a behind-the-scenes video to whet your appetite. Be forewarned, the excellent journalists of the Today show use a fake, fanmade Joker picture [this is the real Joker]. Oh, and I'm pretty sure Al Roker is gay.