The movie Darin and I came up with in the car on the way home was funnier, punchier, more coherent…yet still allowed Will Ferrell to do shtick (always funny).

Why I willing went to another Nora Ephron movie I have no idea.

Ever wondered how shy, retiring Bruce Wayne became the psychopathic Batman? Wonder no longer: Batman Begins tells you how.

We start with young Bruce getting scared by bats, move on to parents getting killed (tied in inextricably with fear of bats in a nice way), move on to Bruce “finding himself” and as a young man (Christian Bale) goes off to understand the criminal mind. He gets thrown in an Asian jail, and after he fights off a ridiculous number of inmates who attack him—showing that he already has the rad moves—he’s rescued by Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) who takes him to the super-secret (and multi-ethnic) ninja cult the League of Shadows. There he learns all sorts of super-secret ninja moves and decides to go back and save Gotham. Well, after he destroys the League. You’ll understand when you see it.

Wayne assumes the persona of a completely unconcerned party boy billionaire by day (or early evening), while fighting crime and kicking asses at night. He finds an inventor genius (Morgan Freeman) in the basement of Wayne Enterprises who makes him cool gadgets. He fights the evil crime lord of Gotham, Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson, with a hilarious accent), and the evil psychiatrist Dr. Crane (Cillan Murphy). He helps out Detective, soon to be Lieutenant, James Gordon (Gary Oldman). And he’s really, really conflicted about what to do about friend-from-childhood-turned-grownup-babe Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes), who’s the incorruptible Assistant DA. Meanwhile, the guy who’s running Wayne Enterprises (Rutger Hauer) is attempting to run it right off the edge of a cliff.

It’s good stuff. Very cool photography, from the mysterious Asian lair to the streets of Gotham—I thought the panoramas of Gotham were quite good, because you’re expecting New York. Some of the fight sequences were annoying, because you can’t quite tell who’s doing what to whom, but in a few cases it really works—such as when we see Batman’s effect on bad guys from the perspective of the bad guys (who really don’t understand what’s going on). The visual effects and gadgets: excellent. The script: I thought it was extremely stylized in all the right ways—people in a comic book do not stand around having “How are you?” conversations; they have grandiose statements of purpose.

You know, the more I think about this movie, the more tempted I am to see it again. But I only get one movie a week these days, and I can’t waste it on repeats. But I totally would, that’s how much I enjoyed it.

Now, on to the questions foremost in your mind:

Christian Bale: hot. I’ve always thought he’s kind of weird looking—still do, actually—but in this movie, definitely hot. Hot, and creepy. (Anyone else think of Patrick Bateman at least once during this film? Show of hands.) But more than that he’s totally believable as a guy who seriously has more on his mind than where his next party is.

Katie Holmes: yick. I know that the whole TomKat way-too-overexposed relationship has predisposed me not to like her (mostly because I think, “Hon, there’s something you oughta know”) but also because she’s 26 and looks, oh, 17. Bale is 30 and looks like he’s a decade older than her—do Asian crime vacations really age a man so much? She’s the Assistant DA by way of the prom. I know she can’t help look girlish and therefore unserious. I just think she’s horribly miscast here.

Supporting cast: totally excellent, even with Wilkinson’s accent. Although I’m confused by one thing: a commenter on Smart Bitches) mentioned Cillan Murphy as an archetypal Regency hero and I gotta say: thank you for playing, but no. Talk about your creepy guys. Brrr.

Best line of the summer: I’m willing to wager there will be no lines to top, “You know how it is, you’re at a party, someone passes around the weaponized hallucinogen…”

But wait! This movie also contains the second best line of the summer, which the newspaper headline about Wayne’s birthday party.

Worst line of the movie: this is a spoiler, so be warned!

When Batman dispatches the Main Villain at the end of the movie, he says, “I won’t kill you. But I don’t have to save you.” And the Main Villain goes to his death. Really left me thinking, What the fuck? Is this part of the Batman mythos? Have they, in fact, excised any compassion from Bruce Wayne? Is he finally being judge, jury, and executioner? It bothered me very much.

Other than that? Definitely much more worthwhile than a “summer movie.” Check it out.

Carina Chocano has an article in today’s LA Times Calendar about the seven rules for movie heroines. Every one of her rules resonates with me. Resonates with me as to why I cannot stand most of the women in movies today, especially in romantic comedies:

How? After watching “Monster-in-Law,” I canvassed a few writers—who won’t be named, so that they may continue to write and happily incorporate notes—to share directives they’d received while creating their romantic heroines. There is no such thing, it appears, as a romantic comedy heroine who couldn’t benefit from being just a little more “likable” than she already is (Rule No. 1). “Likable” of course, can mean many things in the real world; but for a studio it tends to mean that she does some kind of work involving animals or the elderly. Perhaps she’s a veterinarian, or a zookeeper. If she works in business, she has a boss who doesn’t appreciate her, or steals her ideas. Whatever it is, she has it tough. Sometimes she’s a single mother, “trying to hold it all together in this tough, dog-eat-dog world,” one writer offers. “Also, likable often means clumsy,” she adds. “She falls down a lot, but in an adorable fashion. Likable also means pretty. As we all know, the fat are unlikable.”

The seven rules, in case you need the summary instead:

1. There is no such thing, it appears, as a romantic comedy heroine who couldn’t benefit from being just a little more “likable” than she already is.
2. Once she’s been established as almost unbelievably likable, a heroine must be “sympathetic” because, what if she got so likable people actually started to hate her? She must be punished for her smug likability—dumped, cheated on, left at the altar.
3. While it’s OK to spend some time with Ben & Jerry, heartbreak does not call, under any circumstances, for excessive, depressive or erratic behavior of any kind.
4. Essential story elements can and should be jettisoned if they risk making one of the female leads less attractive than she otherwise might be.
5. Sexiness is good, but having sex is problematic.
6. In the case of a male protagonist, one can’t go wrong inserting supermodels wherever humanly possible.
7. If a character’s age is ever mentioned, best to make it 29—29 being the universal sell-by date after which point singleness, klutzy adorability, etc., cross the line from “sympathetic” to simply “pathetic.”

(Via Booksquare.)