Batman Begins...some corrections...many spoilers

Finally saw it last weekend. It was much better than I thought it would be...I was wrong on:

In the movie, it is first Officer and then Sgt. Gordon
When I said "The Batman Chronicles", I meant "Batman Adventures" (which would be the comic in the style of the animated series, whereas "Chronicles" is every Batman comic story in chronological order).

Things I liked: The Rougher look, better costume, comic-like in-the-middle-of-the-action look and feel.
Mr. Bale (though he's a tad short), Mr. Freeman, and Mr. Caine all did a bang-up job.
For once we have a Bruce and Alfred with believable human emotions.
The Dark Knight Returns-like Batmobile.
Chicago as a much more spooky feeling Gotham than the previous movies.
Falcone...though it might have been played different, comes off as a very brutal gangster.
The Scarecrow-gets-his-own-fear gas scene (very creepy).
The Batman Saves Katie scene where she thinks she's done it herself (very funny).

Things I didn't like: Having Gordon being a GPD lifer...even consoling young Bruce after his parents are killed. It made more sense in Batman Year One that he was an outsider from another city and that is why he was not part of the GPD corruption.
Gordon goes way too quickly from skeptic to driving the Batmobile and assisting in stopping Al-Ghul. There are actually a gob of jokes in these scenes, but there is so much noise and commotion that you can't hear anything while Gordon is in the car.
The training scene in the monastery is too long.
How Bruce finds the cave, it was much better in Year One where he finds it running on the property...though it does set up the sweet arrow-head sub-plot.
That Ra's was pronounced with a soft "a" instead of a hard "a" like in the comics and animated series.

Big Spoiler, don't read this if you haven't seen it!!

Things I'm still undecided on: When I saw the first pictures of Liam Neeson as Ducard, I thought "Gee, he looks more like Al-Ghul than Ken Wantanabe does"...but I like Ken as an actor so much I wanted him to be Ra's. I felt a bit stupid and cheated when Liam turned out to be Ra's all along. Yes, Ra's often misguides Bruce and manipulates him to do his bidding, but he has never mis-represented himself as a person. It kind of works here, but Ducard and Ra's are two such different characters in the comics, I feel it was maybe a mistake to combine them.
The Scarecrow portrayal is pretty good, though I think Cillian Murphy is too good looking to play the part. Someone like Steve Buscemi would have been better IMO....he puts the creep in creepy.


I think this movie does create a clean slate for more (better) Batman Movies...which IMO is a good thing. This movie is better than all but the first Michael Keaton Batman movie.