Batman is back with the right actor under the cowl as billionaire (inflation, you know) playboy Bruce Wayne. With Christian Bale assuming the role and director and co-writer Christopher Nolan taking responsibility for the overall product, there's nothing frivolous about this Caped Crusader. He's sly, well-built and fascinatingly brooding.

Bale (American Psycho) and Nolan (Memento) rejuvenate the franchise with a movie that's far more challenging than the two recent vehicles for that other tormented urban crime fighter from comic books, Spider-Man. The streets of Gotham are made safer, and this summer's slumbering Cineplex gets a shot of adrenaline.

The same basic Bat psychology is proffered, only it's darker and more sophisticated. Bruce's demons, which stem from being an only child raised in baronial splendor and then witnessing the death of his parents in an alley outside the Opera, make Spider-Man's issues seem minor. Here we learn how and why Bruce got into the villain-busting business, beyond the simple fact he feels guilty about his parents demise. 

The first half hour of Batman Begins chronicles Bruce's seven years in the wilderness after he fled Gotham City following a hearing concerning the fate of their murderer. Somewhere high in the mountains of Asia, he comes under the tutelage of a Nietzschean vigilante (Liam Neeson) who belongs to the League of Shadows. He masters a medley of martial arts techniques and finds his life's purpose.

This background gives the Batman story a weighty, world-historical angle that the previous movies have lacked. And the somber, shadowy photography and special effects, along with a bulked up hero, help render the tale with a seriousness that shouldn't be confused with self-importance. The Boy Wonder in tights is nowhere to be found, but that doesn't mean levity has been completely banished.

Alas, total originality is hard to come by in any creative endeavor, especially a Hollywood action movie based on a comic book. The early sequences are littered with fortune cookie slogans about conquering one's fears and demons. These corny aphorisms, which could have been lifted from the screenplay for Elektra, are offset by tantalizing details such as his bat phobia, which link his alter ego to an attempt to confront what he most dreads.

Bruce resolves to do something meaningful to avenge his parents' deaths, and he'll do so on his own terms, whether fueled by anger, fear and/or guilt. On his return home to stately Wayne manner, trusty Alfred (Michael Caine) and his childhood playmate, who's now an idealistic district attorney (Katie Holmes), lend a hand, although she thinks he's just a gigolo. Batman confronts the criminal low-life (Tom Wilkinson speaking with an absurd Brooklyn accent) who has turned Gotham into a veritable Gomorrah. He also unmasks a creepy psychiatrist, played by Cillian Murphy, who uses a hallucinogenic drug to manipulate the criminal population. In the process, he uncovers a scheme to contaminate the water supply and cause the corrupt metropolis and the civilization it represents to self-destruct.

Just as interesting as the plot, we learn the origins of the Batmobile and other signature Bat gadgets -- they were military prototypes developed by Lucius Fox, an employee of Wayne Enterprises limned by Morgan Freeman. And we learn that the bat cave is literally a bat cave, and see how the future Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) first helped Batman as an incorruptible cop.

The quartet of veteran actors -- Caine, Freeman, Neeson, and Oldman -- put Bale's edgy, menacing incarnation into relief. Holmes, on the other hand, would look better on Spidey's arm. This Batman is mature enough to forsake the crude vigilantism of the fascistic League of Shadows, whose favorite tactic is terror. No Wayne would stoop to such methods. Bruce is going to clean up Gotham his way. Who knows where it may lead, but compared to other Batman movies, Batman Begins is a stupendous start.

(Released by Warner Bros. and rated "PG-13 " for intense action violence, disturbing images and some thematic elements.)