Note to Dark Knight staff:

Rating: 5/10 (13 September 2008)

From the desk of Warner Brothers Marketing department:
Please note that the release of the new Batman movie we just completed already has plenty of fanfare behind it. Sadly, one of the actors can no longer partake in the new photo shoots and ads. Our job will be to catapult it above any other movie, and we have a plan for this, but first, let's discuss some things about the movie. I know not all of you have seen the movie in it's completion because, frankly, it's a mess. The editing department couldn't make heads or tails out of half the scenes before we had to involve the director to see what in the world was going on in his mind. So here it is in a nutshell:
We all think it turned out to be an good action movie. It's story was fairly well constructed, with more going then just a simple superhero against the bad guy movie. Being better than 'Begins', you didn't have to go through the origins of Bruce Wayne, & instead focus on the meat of the story. And we like Aaron Eckhart who plays Harvey. It all sounds great, but that's where the great ends.
See, the movie just had to cluster another bad guy, Two-Face, into the movie an hour and 45 into it. It made for a tremendously long movie. In a movie like, say X-men, it's good to be long, since each character can share some interesting interaction for screen time. A movie like Batman should never clock more then 2 hours, yet at 152 minutes, Dark Knight over-stretches it's welcome. Scenes that just went on and on with conversations. Even during the movie, we knew editing could have been better, and some speeches between the characters were either redundant or overdone.
The story even dwindles with the Joker, teasing us with past issues that could have been real but perhaps aren't. When Alfred said "some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.", he described Joker pretty well, and it was one of the best quotes in the movie. But the purpose of a good movie that has good vs. evil is that the bad guy has more depth then the good guy, in some cases, we fall in love with the bad guy and can almost seem to go along with him, if not his actions, then the ends to his means. Or perhaps the fallacies that we see in all of us, as scary as it seems to see that deep into ourselves how the 'evil' in some movies reflect that mean spirit in some of us represented with a social comment, like media or government. You can even compare a movie like V for Vendetta and you can begin to see what we mean.
Batman may be the ultimate representation of a good guy with an 'attitude' that goes after criminals that seemingly have no agenda but to be out of their minds. He was grown and started as a creature during the depression, as a shining light against the evil corporations and government. We see it in the comic books. Dark Knight, however, will be a raging success, not because it makes a social commentary or deep character study, but because the general public eats up popular figures with action scenes that doesn't have to make us think, only try to fill in our desires of revenge with interesting technological gadgets.
Here are some better movies: Better action: Matrix, Wanted, cheesy 80's sci fi movies, like Terminator Better story lines: Sin City, V for Vendetta, Seven Samurai Better Superheros with Attitudes: Wolverine, Hellboy, Conan, Lobo And of course, Better bad guys: Hannibal Lecter, Darth Vader, Anton Chigurh (from No Country For Old Men), hell we even like Kaiser Soze- Any of the above bad guys can have an entire book based on them. I can write a description of the Joker in one small paragraph.
Another problem may be that Warner Brothers has put all their eggs into Batman, Superman notwithstanding. Marvel comics now owns the rights to superheroes on the screen, together with Iron Man, Hulk, & the upcoming Thor and Captain America. They have a vision for the big picture for the future of "The Avengers" in 2011 (?) That's a crap-load of heroes but if they play the cards easy, & it shouldn't be too hard, they will have a winning formula for future projects involving even more comic book heroes. But whereas Marvel was busy creating a production company to make business with many of the characters in the Marvel Universe, we.. well..
Anyway, what we need you all to do... every single one of you, from the cameramen to the gaffer, is to sign up on places like IMDb and other movie sites, and give Batman a 10. Write up a review that shows none of the above, make sure you plug for emotional effect with the passing of our fine fellow actor, & make it seem like he deserves an Oscar.
-WBMD
PS: After the write ups and ratings boosts are done, come back to the premiere party next week for biscuits and coke!