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I found Batman Begins a complete failure of execution. Let me repeat myself again: COMIC BOOK LOGIC ONLY WORKS IN COMIC BOOKS. And, really, it's still stupid in comic books. You CANNOT try to be gritty and serious and couple that with over-the-top disregarding of physics for stylistic purposes.

Good films have stylistic and tonal unity. 300 and Sin City were good because it kept the same comic silliness tone for the whole movie. Beowulf failed because it tried to use style to ignore glaring logistics errors. (I'm looking at you, dude who raced up horse full speed up a spiral stone staircase with no railings.)

In Terminator 3, when people carrying backpacks full of guns run past a massive magnetic device without being affected - while the terminatrix gets sucked in when she passes by - it's OK because the movie fully knows it's apocryphal to start with and patently ridiculous. When Batman Begins has a machine that vaporizes water from a distance - and dudes are walking in front of it without any ill effects - that's a massive pile of suck and fail because the movie is trying to SUPER SERIOUS.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was awesome because every actor played with the same stylistic level. Down With Love was painful because every actor was at a different level of over-the-top.

Batman Begins was so disappointing because Nolan is so good at structure and style. Insomnia is a movie I always point to as tonally and stylistically perfect. It's a smallish film, but done impeccably. Batman Begins felt more like Ang Lee trying to do the Hulk - trying to be deep with shallow material. It just feels wrong. I think people loved the film by comparison only. Compared to any other Batman film, Batman Begins is by far the best. The problem is... being the best Batman film is like winning the Special Olympics.

Note that I am not bashing the new film without seeing it. By all accounts it totally works and I desperately want a competent Batman flick. Chances are I won't see it until it's on DVD, but that's more about me hating the theater experience than not wanting to see the movie.