Way Too Much of a Good Thing

Rating: 6/10 (16 August 2008)

Honestly, I wouldn't have seen THE DARK KNIGHT at all except I'd read so much about Heath Ledger's performance. It didn't take long before I was sorely missing Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. After a while I was nostalgic for Adam West and Cesar Romero. At about the two hour mark I realized that I really should have seen MAMA MIA or MIRRORS.
THE DARK KNIGHT is a good ninety minute movie that's bloated to over two and a half hours. Christian Bale is probably a nice guy, kind to children and old ladies, but his performance varies between bland (as Bruce Wayne) and rotten (as Batman). Bale's speaking voice isn't all that distinctive, so there's no reason for him to try to disguise it.
Heath Ledger did well with what was on the page, but the character emerges full grown from a vacuum. This man has gone through life looking like this for however many years and nobody has noticed him until he bursts onto the scene in Gotham? Warner Brothers spent $185,000,000 on this. It would have been better if they'd handed Christopher Nolan $18,500,000 and patted him on the head and told him to go make his movie.
Best performance in the whole film: Chicago playing Gotham City. The movie looks great. The Cinemark where we saw THE DARK KNIGHT has digital projection, and however bored I might have been when the story bogged down the movie looked great.