This city deserves a better class of movies...

Rating: 3/10 (1 July 2009)

I was could not wait to see this movie on the opening weekend. The critics and audiences everywhere were giving this movie such high praises. So I rushed to my local theater to catch what could be a known as the greatest superhero movie ever made in history. Two hours and something minutes later after the movie was done I realized the greatest thing ever made in history was the marketing package for The Dark Knight. Boy, did they over-hype this colossal nonsense of a movie.
SPOILERS! 1) I don't understand why the martial arts style, Keysi, was used in the film. It just doesn't look cinematically pleasing in any sense. In the documentary for Batman Begins, the choreographers wanted Batman to look like an angry beast that would just run over people with his attacks. They didn't want to make the fighting look like a dance (like traditional Wushu). Great. So then what they decided to do was get a bunch of guys who look like they made a fighting style up. They look like monkeys hammer fisting each other! If you don't believe me check out the documentary: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVWyqBdE5RI). As a result the fighting was clumsy, poorly staged, and filmed. Batman is supposed to be stealthy, nimble, yet powerful. But instead, he moves heavily and lethargically.
2) Choppy plot development: Right after Batman dives off the building to save Rachel, what happens to the Joker? We're made to assume he left because Dent was not there. But was that it? Joker crashes a party, finds nothing, and just leaves? It's a movie about The Batman vs. The Joker!!! It's their first interaction with each other – isn't that suppose to be a grand event??!! Nope, instead Joker drops Rachel, Batman goes to save her, and Joker leaves the party. Its plot points like that that really weakens the movie. Another example is Batman's batpod chase throughout the city. At the very end of the sequence, Batman hurls himself at the Joker and falls off the bike. WTF???? No grand battle between good and evil? No epic moments of struggle between the two forces? Then James Gordon saves The Batman? Then why do we need Batman???? Which brings me to another point 3) WHY EXPLAIN SO MUCH? I DON'T CARE WHERE BATMAN GOT ALL OF HIS TOYS!!! It's like every scene had to explain why Batman could do what he does. Batman can bend guns cause his gauntlets have steel clamps built in them, Batman has white eyes because it's part of the sonar technology, Batman can now move his head around because the suit is now segmented instead of being once piece, Luscious Fox helps Batman utilized an escape method that was used in the 1960's by the military and so on and so on and so on and so on.If Batman is suppose to be this mythic creature, then why bother to demystify him at all? From the way they are explaining Batman, it just seems as if ANYBODY can be Batman. All you have to do is get martial arts training and a lot of money and that's it – NOW YOU ARE THE BATMAN. I can understand the explanations being used in Batman Begins, because it was an origins story, but in the Dark Knight, let's see why he's so good. Why only Bruce Wayne can be The Batman.
4) And why all the philosophizing? I can understand the serious themes of the Batman mythos. In the books like "Arkham Asylum: Serious House on Serious Earth", ""The Long Halloween, Brian Azarello's "Joker" they take the time to explore the Dark Knight's world and the characters that inhabit them, but without trying to cram pompous banalities into your mind. In between the action scenes were benign philosophical interludes that were pretentious. And Batman talks way too much. Yes, Batman is more than just a muscle bound superhero, but couldn't we see that through his work as a Detective (which is what he is)? And the voice Christian Bale used was horrible to begin with so making him ramble on and on about right and wrong wasn't appealing at all.
5) This movie was The Joker movie. It wasn't about the Batman. Nolan said he tried to make it more about the hero. He didn't want to make the "mistake" that Burton did with his Batman films where the hero was more of a minor character. Nolan repeated that mistake. Joker was once again the main focus of the movie.
6) It was way too long. The movie should've ended after Batman defeated the Joker. Why bring Two Face into the picture at this point (where I was getting ready to leave the theater)? I really wished they saved Two Face for the third movie.
So hopefully in the third movie they take a step back and really try to slow it down a bit. I know Nolan was ambitious in his creation of the sequel, but I felt like those ambitions blinded his ability to see the details. Too be honestI probably should have just rented this instead of paying $15 for the IMAX showing.