>Batman Begin was not your typical comic book movie & was 1 of
>the best films of 2005. And he got great performances out of
>Robin Williams & Al Pacino in Insomnia. I still dont
>understand why that remake gets hated on so much. But I'm sure
>you & a few others can enlighten me

Batman Begins not being your typical comic book movie had more to do with the script and story than the directing. I heard rumors that I'm pretty certain are 100% true that originally Darren Aranofsky and Frank Miller were working on making Year One (or whatever his book is called) but Aranofsky got dropped because he wasn't commercial enough.

Anyway, the actual direction -- cinematography, mis-en-scene, performace, style, etc. -- is pretty unremarkable. Again, it benefits from having an interesting script but is otherwise pretty much directing-by-the-numbers.

And have you seen the original Insomnia? Honestly I heard how the remake ends and decided to skip it, although part of me morbidly wants to watch it just to see how bad it is. I have heard from my *one* friend whose movie opinion I take seriously, though, that the direction was pretty mediocre.