Someone give Batman some Halls

Rating: Null/10 (17 August 2008)

It's a good thing Batman is, for the most part, a supporting character in The Dark Knight. His irritatingly raspy voice and weak characterization (from an otherwise solid actor) would have weighted a lot more of the movie down had Nolan not been mor...(read more) e interested in other (stronger) characters like The Joker and Harvey Dent. Ledger's Joker is more of a wounded, feral creature than a human, absently licking his lips and limping away from the chaos he creates. And Dent (played affably but not to perfection by Eckhart) is more his opposite than Batman.
Ambitious would be an understatement, and that's part of the problem. There are a lot of interesting ideas at work, but few come to fruition. The film opens with Batman impersonators, which at a glance would fit in with the main arc of Batman's influence on the city. Yet, once introduced, they're hardly brought up again. Batman has this absurd sonar gadget that essentially stands in for U.S. government wiretapping (he can spy on every Gothamite through their cell phones), something that Lucius Fox disapproves of. It is mentioned and used once, then disposed of in a pretty silly way.
Nolan, however, has improved on his previous installment in a lot of ways. Gotham feels more like a real city - one even existing in a post 9/11 world, nonetheless. And despite it's length (which could have easily lost about 20 minutes), The Dark Knight never gets boring. Although, much like with Batman Begins, Nolan couldn't put a decent action scene together at gunpoint.
It's an ensemble piece, and a very good one at that. But it's far from the brilliant epic it clearly aspires to be.