...I didn't actually like it. Yeah, I know.

Rating: 6/10 (28 July 2008)

Okay, so please don't immediately want to kill me for not liking this movie. And first, let me say that I thought that it was magnificently acted across the board, and that there were really excellent things about it. I understand why everyone likes it so much. But it just wasn't my cup of tea...as for why, I attempt to explain...and yes, THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE!!! While I may be alone in this, I wanted...how to put this...a more traditional superhero movie. I wanted the superhero to get the girl and defeat the villain. And honestly...in The Dark Knight, the girl died, and the villain won, basically. Which was kind of a downer, really.
Also, I felt that it was a little jam-packed. With the whole fraudulent money thing, plus the two villains, plus all of the plot twists, it became one giant hell of a movie. There were so many random characters that were introduced that I found it difficult to keep track of all of them...for instance, the police detective Ramirez, and the man who replaced Falcone as the leader of the mob, (as well as less significant others) were difficult to keep track of. As a result, I did spend the first half hour being confused as to exactly what was going on. Also, in the same vein, I didn't see the point of having Cillian Murphy (Scarecrow) in the movie. His cameo was brief, placed in the middle of other action, didn't really add anything, and was too much, on top of everything that was already going on.
Going off of that, a little, TDK had very little connection to the first movie. Obviously, as a sequel, it has license, but also as a sequel, I felt that it should have had a little more in common with the first movie. In Batman Begins, there was so much more Bruce Wayne -- It was mostly a Bruce Wayne movie as opposed to mostly a Batman movie. So much of the plot was devoted to Bruce's parents, and his training, and Rachel, and all the backstory, and that was partially why I really liked it so much. By contrast, there was NONE of that in TDK, and you kind of forget the bigger picture of why Bruce doing all of this (i.e his parents' legacy, Rachel...) This was totally a Batman movie, as opposed to a Bruce Wayne movie. Some people will undoubtedly like that better, and I imagine that Nolan did it intentionally, but I didn't like it as much.
Although this is somewhat nit picky and couldn't be helped, I really didn't like that they switched from Katie Holmes to Maggie Gyllenaal. In my opinion, Gyllenhaal is a much better actress. However, the Batman Begins!Rachel and the Dark Knight!Rachel seemed to have nothing in common except that they shared the same name. I didn't think that they had any of the same personality traits, few of the same characteristics, and TDK!Rachel didn't seem to have a lasting, intense attachment to Bruce like that which was seen in the first movie.
Lastly...and this is something that many will disagree with me about, but (although it was necessary to facilitate Dent's transformation) I really didn't like that Rachel died. I felt like she gave Bruce a higher purpose, where there was something that was more important to him than being Batman, and there was something waiting for him at the end of it all that made it all worthwhile. Now, though, there is no higher purpose. Now, he's just fighting and fighting until the criminals are vanquished, or he dies. There's no bigger picture, and it's very bleak. While that was probably intentional as well, it simply didn't suit me.
That said, this movie was wonderfully acted, and Heath was absolutely incredible. Some things about it are brilliant, particularly the black humor. So, while it was not for me, it is still a great piece of cinema complete with phenomenal performances.