Why so serious, indeed?

Rating: 3/10 (28 September 2008)

Those looking for some fun, a bit of entertainment, will be disappointed by The Dark Knight. It's almost as if the director is trying not to make a superhero film at all, its desperate attempts to make everything plausible and gritty ignoring the fact that the two protagonists are actually a mad clown and a man who dresses as a bat...
Fair enough if you don't want to make a superhero film, but if you don't want to make said film please don't pick one of the most famous superheroes of all time to drag down into an overlong grim-fest with far too much standing around and discussion of the film's plot.
As with the (superior) Batman of Tim Burton, once again the Joker dominates the film. The problem is that Ledger's Joker does not really play any jokes, have any gadgets, or try to make anyone laugh. The Joker should be scary AND funny, and Ledger fails in this regard. Bale's Batman is also portrayed as a thug, beating up an imprisoned Joker and dropping a villain out of a building. Isn't Batman supposed to be the 'World's Greatest Detective'? Isn't he supposed to use his brains and intelligence to outwit the villains, rather than just pounding them to a pulp? Perhaps this is a reflection of tactics deemed acceptable by the War on Terror but it isn't the Batman I admire.
Dark Knight's claim to realism is also blown out of the water by the Joker's merry band of mental hospital patients (!) managing to install huge amounts of explosives in hospitals, ferries, offices etc without anyone noticing till the conveniently dramatic crucial moment. Finally, the Batman rescues the Joker from falling to his death, because, after all, Bats is a hero. Sadly this contradicts his actions in Batman Begins where he refuses to save Ducard from certain death on the stricken Gotham monorail.
Overall, the film leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. For some viewers, the darker the better, and as a teenager I'm sure I would have loved this film. But if you want dark, watch a horror or a thriller, and leave superheroes alone to be larger than life. I'm not advocating a return to the days of the Joel Schumacher neon-nightmares, but this film should have allowed Batman to have a bit of fun, and be less of a thug.