Batman was supposed to be scary. Every comic book geek worth their weight in pulp knows that he chose the symbol of the bat to strike fear in the hearts of his enemies. In the movies, however, his portrayals have ranged from campy (Adam West), gothic expressionist with his tongue planted somewhat in his cheek (Michael Keaton), and the inexplicable gay club kid pinup portrayals of Val Kilmer and George Clooney.

Now, finally, we get a weird and scary Batman. Christian Bale, whose turns in American Psycho and The Machinist showed an affinity for the dark and nasty, brings to the screen the Batman that this comic book geek has waited to see for years. This is a guy you believe has been haunted by bats and the spectres of his dead parents for most of his life.

All of the story beats familiar to Batman readers are covered here -- the childhood fall into a well that was filled with hordes of the black-winged creatures, the death of Bruce Wayne's parents (correctly attributed, at last, to the thug named Joe Chill and not the Joker), the young Mr. Wayne's study of fighting techniques and the criminal mind, and the ruthlessness of the Batman's attacks against criminals -- with a respect for the original material. Screenwriter David Goyer (who has also written all three of the Blade movies) must have spent an awful lot of his life reading comic books.

Goyer and director Christopher Nolan have fashioned a comic book reality using real world elements. It may be a little disconcerting to some to see a Batmobile that looks more like a black tank with a jet engine than the batty-tailfin showcars used in other Batman movies, but if you were to think about what the Batmobile has to do, its design makes perfect sense.

And, like Sam Raimi with his Spider-Man pictures, Nolan has managed to make a big budget movie that keeps the idiosyncratic style of his earlier, lower-budget thrillers. The narrative's timeline is broken up, with Bruce Wayne's childhood and pre-Batman years related in brief flashbacks, like the main character arcs of his films Memento and Insomnia. While this could have veered over in pretension, it manages to give you a subjective feel of what Bruce Wayne must feel like -- no doubt these thoughts occur to him in this way all the time, or else why would he put on that black mask and risk his life to fight psychotic criminals when he could just as easily squander his family fortune on parties and pretty girls.

And then, there's the movie's portrayals of fear. Fear is the motif of this movie, and at several points it veers over into horror movie imagery. When Batman attacks, his now-you-see-him, now-you-don't tactics have the quality of a vampire's movements. When Bruce Wayne first shows up at the tibetan temple of Ra's Al Ghul for ninja training by his league of shadows, the fear of having his ass kicked by several dozen martial artists is evident on Christian Bale's face. And one of the villains of the piece, The Scarecrow, exploits the deepest fears of his victims by dosing them with a gas that no doubt feels like the brown acid they warned the hippies not to take in Woodstock. (One of many shots in the movie that brought a smile to my horror-fan's face involves what happens when a criminal under the influence of the Scarecrow's gas sees Batman and goes mad with fear.)

There are some weak spots -- Katie Holmes still looks like she's twelve years old, and as a result her scenes as a Gotham City district attorney have the feel of a little kid playing dress-up, and one of the final scenes between Jim Gordon and Batman, meant to set up a sequel, felt a little tacked-on to me (I may be alone in this sentiment, though, since it sets up the entrance of a popular character to Bat-fans.)

But the pluses far outweigh the minuses. This is the first superhero movie since Richard Donner's original Superman back in -- sheesh, 1978, doesn't that make me feel old -- that populates the cast with a parade of star names, all of whom bring their A-game (even Holmes, while visually unbelievable in the part, takes her role seriously) and elevate the material even higher than David Goyer's artful script can take it. Michael Caine imparts a sly sense of humor to Alfred, who in other portrayals just came off as stuffy and oh-so-British. Gary Oldman, who I always love seeing in movies, works against his usual flourishes and underplays Jim Gordon and hits just the right notes. Morgan Freeman must have relished the opportunity to play in an action adventure film in which the black man isn't just dispensible comic relief, and I can't tell you how happy and surprised I was to see Roy Batty himself, Rutger-freakin'-Hauer, turn up in a nice little supporting role. And those are the good guys! Imagine how long it's been since you saw a Batman picture where the good guys were actually interesting and fully developed. In a welcome change of pace, the villains don't overwhelm the picture, they provide the necessary colorful background to Bruce Wayne's story. And, finally, that story is told with all the scary flourishes it needs. Let's just call summer 2005 the summer of fear.