This was not a good film.

Rating: 1/10 (25 July 2008)

As a guy who loves the Batman Character and used to own a chain of comics stores in the late 80's through the 90's I found the new Batman film to be abominable. The handling of the Batman character was the worst I have ever seen, and I say that being someone who hates all of the other Batman Movies (with the exception of Batman Begins). It was a classic modern tearing down of an iconoclastic hero that was less realistic than it's printed counterpart. The Batman character would never consider revealing his identity to appease the Joker, because he understands that you cannot appease pure evil. He would instead redouble his efforts to find the Joker, not eating or sleeping until he did. The Batman of the comics is a detective who uses classical detecting techniques, coupled with a healthy dose of bruised knuckles as he harasses the underworld to find his query. In other words he uses no shortcuts he works hard.
Hollywood used the opportunity to make a political statement, having Batman build a machine that taps into every cell phone in Gotham City, allowing for the altruistic Lucius Foxx character to opine about this act of immorality. A none to subtle swipe at the Bush administration. Then you have Harvey Dent (Two Face) who as the DA of Gotham, is described by Batman as "the best of us all" killing two dirty cops, and to save the fragile collective psyche of Gotham City, Batman takes the blame for the deaths of the cops. Why it would not make more since to simply reveal to the public that Harvey Dent went Coo Coo after the death of the women he loved, as a result of another act of murder perpetrated by the Joker, with the help of the aforementioned dirty cops and the trauma of being disfigured, is beyond me. Save that it fits into the paradigm of liberal thought that the people are to be protected from the grim reality of the world. Better to tear down the real hero of the saga and have him chased by the police. Keep in mind that the film establishes that the villains of Gotham know from experience that Batman will not cross the line and kill the worst of them. but we are supposed to believe that the public of Gotham will swallow that Batman would kill two innocent cops. WOW!
Batman is a character who is truly good, and he has been tarnished by this film. In a world where Superman in his last film was reduced to a peeping tom hero with a babies mama. Psychopaths like Marvels Wolverine and the Punisher are hailed as modern heroes. A world where so many young people leave the theater declaring how cool Heath Ledger is as the Joker and not how scary the character is, I find that world tragic. As one of our old comic shop patrons used to say:
"Give me the days when a hero had a letter on his chest, a magic word, a cape and a pet or side kick. A hero that fought the bad guys because he was good and they were bad and they needed their a$$e$ kicked. Let justice be done.