PERHAPS the biggest crime director Christopher Nolan's Caped Crusader has to fight is the one against cinema perpetrated by 1997's camp disaster Batman And Robin.

That this dark, thoughtful film, which is as close to serious drama as a tale about a psychotic ninja billionaire can be, does that and more is a tribute to Nolan's careful treatment and his superb core cast.

As the title suggests, the film goes back to the formative years of Bruce Wayne his childhood fear of bats, the murder of his parents and his guilt-fuelled wanderlust which sees him taken in by a Draconian bunch of justice enforcers called The League Of Shadows where he learns all manner of martial arts and the self control not to laugh at Liam Neeson's ridiculously wispy goatee beard.

Rejecting the league's punitive methods, Wayne returns to Gotham where with the help of his loyal butler played by a seemingly forever-on-the-point-of-tears Michael Caine and disgruntled Wayne Enterprise's employee Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) he takes on the city's corruption as Batman.

For every bit of superhero mythology there is a double dose of human drama with the origins of Bruce Wayne's fears and his relationships with Alfred, principled attorney Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes) and isolated honest cop Gordon (Gary Oldman) given plenty of time.

In fact although this is a superhero film there is very little reliance on computer generated graphics or special effects.

There are real settings such as glaciers in Iceland, the streets of Chicago doubling for Gotham and Hertfordshire's Hatfield House transformed into Wayne Manor. Reality is impressed throughout. When people fight they get hurt. The Bat Cave is just that, a dank, doomy grotto riddled with swooping bats.

The film is beautifully crafted with the theme of fear informing all the salient events.

It is Wayne's childhood fear of bats that he blames for his parents' death though his father's decision to take him to a performance of Wagner has got to share some culpability and fear possesses the methods of Dr Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy) in his plan to infect the water supply of Gotham with a hallucinogenic panic drug.

The choice of Christian Bale (American Psycho) as Batman lends himself to such a serious treatment. Bale, an actor famed for his submersion in his screen roles, brings a depth which suggests a seriously mixed-up young man who is still searching for a way to deal with his demons.

Caine and Freeman are excellent in roles that hardly stretch them.

Oldman is endearingly haggard and Columbo-like and there are good turns from Murphy, Neeson and Tom Wilkinson as a mob boss caught up in the less-than-good doctor's plans.

The only one who struggles is Holmes, who may hope that the rather embarrassing concurrent publicity as Tom Cruise's "true love" will disguise her underwritten part and her rather sappy reading of it.

There are a few nods to the film's corny origins with some nice wisecracking between Alfred, Wayne and Fox but mostly this is the first serious Batman film that feels that it has legs as a franchise if the core cast agree to stick around.

Mark Edwards