I know it's awful and I don't even READ comic books!

Rating: 1/10 (27 July 2008)

Wait until you see the atrocity that is 'The Dark Knight." And you will see it no matter what I say, anyway, won't you? I've tried to keep this spoiler-free, despite the fact that whatever unpredictability the moth-eaten plot has is based on the surprise being completely inexplicable in context. So forgive me if it's a bit vague in places.
The latest Batman film, lauded by fan and critic alike, was apparently replaced at my theater with another similarly-titled film in which Iron Man fought the killer from Saw, who is intent on reproducing the last ten minutes of Spiderman II over and over again. Everyone in the film is either an idiot or an omniscient genius, but either way, they are the most unobservant bunch of people ever put on film. The whole movie would have sputtered to an instant conclusion if the city cell phone network had gone down. And even The Simpsons has lampooned 'The Only Bridge Out of Town'. And the first moment Batman is on screen, he is bending the barrel of a gun unto a U-shape. I think somebody was looking on the wrong page of their comics reference guide when they wrote all of the super strength + flying scenes in for Batman.
This is an Idiot Picture. There was no set piece in this film that would not have been avoided by a modicum of common sense. Honestly, kudos to Heath Ledger--whoever he was playing that was impersonating The Joker as someone with no apparent sense of humor--but any normal person would have shot the man on sight just to stop him babbling for the next twenty minutes. Every freaking scene was a monologue! Of the same thing! Everyone did that, actually. The characters seldom had conversations, just extended monologues which aspired to be weighty and philosophical. And not a word they said mattered, because in the end, it comes down to punching someone, anyway. The Joker has only one trick, and it is the same one three or four times. Bale's characterization of Batman and Bruce Wayne is so lifeless, he doesn't even seem to have been in the film.
Technically, it suffered from being heavily edited, apparently to obtain a PG-13 rating. Killings appear off-screen or in obvious jump cuts. Events are alluded to which not only do not occur, but appear to occur differently. Was this the airline version? How long would this thing have been as shot? It already exceeded two and a half hours. Happily, there was plenty of opportunity for bathroom breaks. Every time someone opened their mouth you had ten minutes free. Still, sloppy editing cannot excuse the way characters simply appear and disappear as needed by the script, regardless of the impossibility of getting there unnoticed. IITS* is essentially a plot device.
If this seems like a litany of nitpicks without mention of all the good points, well, as far as I can tell, I mentioned ALL the good points.This film viciously wasted my time as if I was a character in it, trapped in a theater with fifty hitherto-unnoticed oil drums and the option to explode the audience of Wall-E. It would have been a mercy.
*IITS (It's in the script, that's why! Concept created by Ken Begg.)