Not long back from the flicks: playing on the big screen was Batman Begins. Outing was suggested by an old (though two months younger than me) friend. In our impressionable years we scoured the mean streets of Ipswich for DC comics - used to be a well-stocked odd-shaped shop on St Margaret's Plain that we patronised - and later, when at least one of us had a mortgage, we peered through the darkness at the Tim Burton version.

BB didn't disappoint. Sure, there were some po-faced moments ("it's what I do that defines me") and plot silliness (yep, they mislaid the microwave emitter: no instant popcorn for you), but they tried hard to ground the thing in some sort of reality.

Highlights would have to include The Scarecrow with his psychotropic hallucinogens, yielding some genuinely disturbing moments, Liam Neeson as a grown-up Yoda, and some imaginatively choreographed Ninja training scenes.

Also good was the level of hush, to feel that the audience was concentrating on what was being said and not just on the baddies being dispatched. Though when Bruce was fretting about what symbol to use for his crime-fighting persona, I did feel the urge to yell "Er, what about a bat?"