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For about half a decade, Batman was a dirty word at Warner Bros. Once a marquee franchise, a flamboyant director (Joel Schumacher) drove the caped crusader into the ground, deeply angering fans and critics with the schlocky Batman & Robin in 1997. After flirting with Batman Vs. Superman in an attempt to resurrect both superheroes, the studio took a page out of 20th Century Fox's (X-Men) book and hired an auteur rather than a hit-maker. Warner Bros. made smart casting decisions and managed to get enough of the right people involved to convince the franchise's detractors that this time would be different. But just how different it is may come as a shock to everyone.

Batman Begins is a true origin story. Not a detail is glossed over, such as in Tim Burton's first Batman film. Nolan's vision starts with Bruce Wayne as a boy. Attacked by bats on his property, Bruce develops a lifelong fear of the creatures. He becomes even more paranoid about the world around him after witnessing his parents' murder. When a chance to kill the man who committed the crime is foiled years later by local mob boss Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson), Wayne (Bale) disappears to Asia for seven years. There, he meets The League Of Shadows, a group of highly skilled ninjas who claim to influence history by trying to create equilibrium in the world's biggest cities. Wayne trains with League leader Ducard, but when he learns they intend to destroy his hometown, Gotham City, he turns his back on the ninjas, destroying their temple and fleeing for home to fight crime under a new moniker, Batman.

I'd love to go into more plot details, but there is just too much going on in this film. In much the same way that Robert Rodriguez's take on Frank Miller's Sin City was like a graphic novel experience, director Christopher Nolan (Memento) one-ups him by presenting much of the back-story like a series of vignettes that actually evoke comic book pages. Nolan aces Batman with such deft accuracy that Warner Bros. better sign him up for another two movies before he gets bored and decides to go back to indie films.

Bale brings to Batman what Kilmer, Clooney and even Keaton couldn't — menace. He's the first truly frightening Batman, but then this movie also features the scariest villain in the history of the franchise, Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy). Bale's dry humour and composure make him a perfect choice for the playboy Wayne. Fans wanted him for years and he doesn't disappoint. Michael Caine nails Alfred, Wayne's ever-present butler, while Gary Oldman is perfectly subtle as Lieut. (and future Commissioner) Jim Gordon. Ms. Tom Cruise, er, Katie Holmes is shockingly not bad as Wayne's lifelong friend, assistant district attorney Rachel Dawes, though some of the development of their relationship makes absolutely no sense at all.

Given some time, Batman Begins will likely outdistance Batman Returns (Burton) as the best ever in the series. But move over Spider-Man: the potential that the key players — Nolan, Bale, Oldman and Caine — have put into place here could make a new series of Batman films the standard against which all future superhero movies are measured.