Earning His Wings features this terrific appraisal (emphasis mine):

The rugged charm of “Batman Begins,” which stars Welsh actor Christian Bale, lies partly its refusal to join the visual-effects arms race that the summer-movie season has lately become. When Nolan does turn to digital wizardry, he uses it to amplify the action, not supply it. “I think there’s a vague sense out there that movies are becoming more and more unreal,” says Nolan. “I know I’ve felt it. The demand we put on ourselves was to be as spectacular as possible, but not depend on computer graphics to do it.” In “Batman Begins,” most of the fireworks come from old-fashioned places: story and character. “Like many people,” says Bale, 31, “I’ve sat through these huge movies and thought, What went wrong? How come, when people have all that time and money, the talent for storytelling so often goes straight out the window?”