Well, both movies are quite good, but I'd say that I'd choose Batman Begins out of the two.

Superman Returns is a nice way of trying to bring him back to the screen. I thought the story was thought out well, and the actors did great most of the time. I didn't mind the focus on drama rather than action, because the story required it, and in the end it worked relatively well, although I wouldn't have minded seeing more action. One thing in Superman Returns was definitely better than in Batman Begins, though: the score. I liked the way how John Ottman used John Williams's classic score as a template and managed to stay faithful to it while adding his own themes and style into the mix, and he created a great score in the process.

Batman Begins had a good cast as well (Katie Holmes was the lone exception, although I didn't luckily cringe during her scenes), and I really liked the way how most of the time the movie concentrated on the drama instead of action, and it was fine as an origin story. The story worked well, tying many plots together in the end, and the cinematography really worked in the movie's favour. The hasty editing of the action sequences was a bit unfortunate, although I can understand it from a filmmaker's point of view: I just would've hoped that at least the final battle would've had longer shots instead of having that claustrophobic feel.

The score of BB sucked most of the time, unfortunately. Batman's pre-theme (or whatever you want to call it) was lame an uninspired, and the action material was pretty much standard Zimmer stuff except for the occasional touching subtheme that definitely had James Newton-Howard's musical signature in them. True, the music works for the most part in the film, even in action sequences, but if you compare it to, say, the first Batman film's score by Danny Elfman, it's a far cry from Elfman's masterpiece. I hope that the sequel's score will be more inspired, but we'll see how things go.