Bingowings said:
What ruined Batman Begins for me was the microwave weapon.
Somehow this was supposed to atomise the water supply in the pipes underground but not cook the people on the ground?
In a silly Batman film you can get away with that sort of thing (just look at the powdered ambassadors in the 60's Batman movie) but in the sort of film Nolan was supposedly making it stuck out like the collapsing Venetian palace in Casino Royale (2006).
The Dark Knight had very little of that (even if Dent's injuries seemed too extreme to be taken seriously in that universe).
It was said that this was a "focused microwave emitter" by one of the Wayne Enterprise board members. Microwaves can be focused, just like a laser, and just as laser is actually an acronym (Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation), there is actually a microwave equivalent called a maser. Lasers/masers keep their light/radiation so focused and coherent that it could travel miles in a beam with no noticeable widening of the beam (unlike a regular light beam like your flashlight). Therefore, a high powered maser could pass within inches of you without you noticing. However, if it passed directly through you, the water in your body would have cooked you instantaneously. Now it seems to me that the weapon does pass directly over some people without harming them, and visually there is no indication that a small beam emitter pointed downward is ever used. However, perhaps this will ease your conscience as to the realism of the film.