Reflections of a stormy petrel

Thank you. I am more a superhero buff (indeed, I have created my own) than a film buff, and I guess that makes the difference. A lot of film critics will not necessarily get the whole superhero mythology. In particular, there has been far too much emphasis on the tormented nature of Michael Keaton's Batman - a superhero fan will recognize it as part of the self-doubts that have been a standard part of the superhero figure since at least Stan Lee. Conversely, what really does it for me is something that I suspect the average art-house movie lover will find positively toe-curling - the final crescendo from the DA reading Batman's letter to the assembled journalists, to the music swelling and rising as the camera rises up to the sky and takes in the hero looking up at the symbol. That, I repeat, makes no obvious rational sense, but it calls to our image of the hero in our collective memories, and is powerful and comforting.

Incidentally, I have nothing against art house movies as such, or indeed the art of cinema in general. I just think that this particular movie appeals to a taste that most intellectual movies don't.