It's been said already but this is way overrated.

Rating: 5/10 (11 September 2008)

Well, this film is the most overrated movie I can remember but that doesn't mean it sucks at all. It's well made, with great shots and good acting (at least by Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Heath Ledger). The action scenes are filmed more coherently than Batman Begins and that pencil trick was awesome.
Still, there are too many ridiculous scenes (like flying out of a window with a cable attached to a plane and cell phones turning into radar machines) and completely unnecessary plot lines. Do I really care if Commissioner Gordon plays dead for half the film and his wife gets mad at him or some Chinese guy is hording the criminal's cash? No. Give us more confrontation between the hero and villain. Lastly, the dark themes this film deals with are taken a little too seriously for a movie about a superhero of sorts. He wears a cape and a mask and fights crime as a symbol... don't try and get me emotionally involved in any THEME greater than that. Develop the characters and make me care about them. The animated "Batman and the Mask of the Phantasm" did a better job with that.
Whatev, i've rambled long enough. It's still a very enjoyable movie and if I see it again i'll probably like it more but there's no way this deserves all the praise it gets. I'd really give it a 6.5 out of ten but we can't do .5s and this definitely does not belong in the top movies of all time. Too bad because it might be worthy of a 7 or 8 had it not been hyped up like it was the gift of Zeus.