First things first. Is this indeed the best superhero movie ever?

Yes.

Batman Begins shares much in common with the well-revered Spiderman movies. Both of those try to be true to their character by respecting the character and the origin, and taking everything about them seriously. Not in a stultifying manner -- they both have ample doses of humor in the story -- but without the wink and nod or Bam! Crash! Zoom! to say, "Hey we know this is a silly character, and we're sorry about that...please don't hurt us."

Where the movies differ is that Batman is not, believe it or not, a comic book movie. It is not the (well-done) shiny comic-book representation of a comic-book hero we all know and love of Spiderman. It is not a Sin City-like attempt to reflect the comic art on the screen, and it is not some messed up hacked to pieces narrative trying to cram in the original source material (*cough*). It is not two hours of non-stop action that uses the name and cape from some TV series or comic you saw once.

No, it is a movie. It is an in-depth exploration of a character and what drives him, and how his life inevitably plays out due to that. If you'd never heard of Batman, you could well never realize this film is based on something. It simply is. In some ways, there has been no Batman before this film, because this film creates the true Batman from scratch. Nothing that comes after this can help but use this as the source.

So, finally, after 60 years, Batman lives.

And he is a scary man, and his opponents are scary men. Not in a Boo!-style, but in a "Holy crap I hope I never find myself in the room with that guy" kind of style. There are three villains in this film, all different and all scary in their own way. The most comic-bookish is the seemingly silly "Scarecrow", who dons a burlap sack on his head when he wants to be creepy. That's the stupidest villain concept you could imagine. And yet, somehow, this is the creepiest villain you've ever seen.

In part because you don't actually see him much, or Batman for that matter. They are momentary blurs on your consciousness...Batman is the thing that was in the corner just a second ago, before you looked. Scarecrow is the thing you look at then immediately look away, because he is too horrible to endure. Director Christopher Nolan understands what makes things scary and what makes them creepy, and he plays this to the hilt.

And Nolan has created a real world here...a world you can feel, that you know you can hop on a train and go to after you leave the theater. There is a remarkable uniformity of purpose here to the acting, direction, cinematography, city design. It all pushes the theme and the story further, and each is a comment on the other.

There is much to discuss, and there are minor flaws to pick at. But there is only one real thing to say about Batman Begins:

See this movie.