"After a slow start, Batman Begins begins — to rock!" — Alex Ross, Syndicated Online Verbiage. Opera fans might be intrigued to know that Boito's Mefistofele figures in the plot of the latest caped caper. A performance of that work so frightens the young Bruce Wayne that he asks his parents to take him home, whereupon they are shot by an economically downtrodden miscreant and a dark destiny takes hold of the child. The score, by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, is a dour, serviceable Philip Glass heavy-metal symphony. Christian Bale isn't quite all that, but he gives good bat.
