Not As Great As All That

Rating: 8/10 (16 December 2008)

I am a little amazed by so many rave reviews. I did enjoy this film, but it is also seriously flawed, and that needs to be considered. Its running length was long, it was way too complicated and hard to follow, and (I can't shake this) the female lead was miscast. The first criticism may not be significant, given how long many films routinely are these days and the fact that this can easily be forgiven if it all works and one is entertained (as in "Lord of the RIngs", for example). But a convoluted and hard-to-follow story is a serious plotting fault and this movie has it in spades. I personally attribute this to a modern "Video Game" mentality and to this film probably being oriented toward a young audience reared on those games. The plot and sub plots jump all over the place and are hard to follow, some sub plots lead nowhere, often-unrecognizable characters jump in and out, and scenes are not fully fleshed out. This all creates a hyperactive feeling to the film. In a sense this works because the Joker, himself, is crazy, so that fits, and because so much eye candy is constantly being thrown at the viewers to keep them entertained. Repeated viewings will probably go a long way to clearing up many details and convoluted areas, but a good story shouldn't need that to be fully understandable. The casting of Maggie Gyllenhaul as Rachel Dawes just felt wrong to me; she is not a very attractive woman, more goofy-looking, and didn't seem to bring much weight or sizzle to the role, especially the romantic scenes. Last, and relatively minor in this age, the film is "volume-impaired" Â– at times demanding seriously higher volume to understand a quiet conversation and then a major reduction in volume for the next dramatic sequence. I suspect, however, that this wouldn't bother a lot of young people who routinely listen to over-amped car and game sound systems. Worth praise foremost is Heath Ledger's take on the Joker, the great special effects and the Batpod, and the new slant on Batman as a dark scapegoat. Bottom line, however, is that in the overall scheme of things, this was not THAT great a film. Fun, good, not great. Sorry, but "Batman Returns" was a much better scripted and paced film. Very top ratings belong to films like "The Godfather" or "The Seven Samurai".