Muddled, gimmicky mess redeemed slightly by the last 30 minutes

Rating: 3/10 (9 December 2008)

While the central performance from Heath Ledger is a superb portrayal of madness the muddled plot and centre sound channel for the vocals makes this piece of storytelling very difficult to follow. In fact, I had to watch the Blu-ray of this film in three sittings because I got so frustrated with it until the last 30 minutes or so when it did actually introduce a fairly original idea (the two ships primed to explode). There are too many poorly developed characters in this film which meant I didn't really care about any of them. I seem to remember that the first film in this relaunched series ('Batman Begins') was also muddled but at least that was was a bit more comprehensible than this follow-up due to the first segment explaining Batman's origin. A couple of points - why does Batman talk in that ridiculous husky voice while as Bruce Wayne he does not? Presumably, so that he is not recognised as his alter-ego but I just found it laughable. Why does the aspect ratio change from standard widescreen to the IMAX format for the action sequences? This is either an unnecessary gimmick - (films should be kept in one aspect ratio or the other) or they couldn't afford to shoot the whole film in IMAX.