The Dark Hype

Rating: 5/10 (25 July 2008)

So much has been said on the latest instalment of the revitalised Batman franchise, dead stars, posthumous Oscars, arrests at premiers, will it lead to a rise in knife crime? Etc. but the only relevant question is it any good? Well Hamlet this is not so all those five star reviews and people intent on gushing all over it can calm down. Yes its dark, yes Batman is plagued by his demons, yes Heath is great, it's not comparable to Michael Mann's Heat, when all is said and done this is an OK superhero movie but considering it cost $185 million its hard to see where all that money has been spent. From a bank heist beginning that meanders to a pointless appearance of the Scarecrow to Bale flying on to the screen it seems to push all the right buttons and at the point that the Joker does his magic trick you could still be forgiven for thinking this is a five star visual feast. But unfortunately the set up doesn't really lead anywhere, there are no set pieces and at times it is even incoherent in its plot which could be from trying to cram too much information in an already overlong film. The twists, yes there are a few, are boringly obvious and I'm really not sure what happens to Bruce Wayne's voice when he dons the Batsuit but it changes to sound like a sort of vaudevillian heavy breather. That said Heath did make me laugh, he is not the most iconic screen bad guy since Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet, but he is good and the supporting cast all put in fine performances. The musical style has been borrowed from a Michael Mann film and the direction is brilliant in parts but as a whole it doesn't seem to gel together. Ironically the Jokers catch phrase is 'why so serious?' And if all involved had maybe listened to him and not be so serious, pretentious even then it may have been a much better film all round. Worth watching but not, as according to the IMDb, the greatest film of all time.