Truly DARK Dark Knight...

Rating: 4/10 (22 July 2008)

I went to see the advanced screening of The Dark Knight on IMAX. My first IMAX experience and boy was I blown away - the screen is HUGE. The main reason I hated this film can be summed up in one word - Batman. I hate Christian Bale's portrayal of Batman. He's plain awful, sorry but that's my personal opinion. Bale is stiff, lifeless and even worst lacks charisma, regardless of whether he's playing Bruce Wayne or Batman. He's so disconnected emotionally that as an audience member I didn't care what happened with him. Heath's Joker knows how to grab you straight away and demand your full attention. While Heath's performance is stellar it does lack the wit and humor you'd expect from the Joker. Whereas Jack Nicholas brought us the fun, over-the-top, magically devious Joker; Heather brings us the sad, dark, and pitiful side of the character. He plays it well, so well in fact, that it becomes a complete downer as you pull into the final minutes of this 2.5 hour non-stop shoot 'em up, throw 'em down, car chase, mob flick. It's beyond me how this movie was able to secure a PG-13 rating when it truly deserves a D rating. D for dark, dreadful, depressing, deep, and distressing. This film takes itself so seriously it's nauseating. It's a superhero movie with zero heart, where even the so-called good guy turns bad in the end. And Batman usually has beautiful love interests. The love interest being played by Maggie Gyllenhaal was simply bad casting. While she's a great actress she lacks any sex appeal and doesn't light up the screen as past women have in the Batman series - counting both film and TV, which says a lot. If only the director could have found a way to inject some LIGHT into Dark Knight I would be able to call this a masterpiece, but alas it's more of a bad nightmare.