Donald Duck meets Edward Scissorhands (in a good way and, yes, it's possible)

Rating: 8/10 (19 July 2008)

Slightly better than Spiderman 2 and Iron Man.
Good points:
1. The Joker - not scary but captivating.
2. Some very funny dialog - YOU COMPLETE ME
3. A few surprises, not plot twist surprises but rather people show up where you don't expect them
4. The acting is very solid all around. I like that Oldman had a bigger part this time.
Bad Points:
1. I may have figured Nolan's lame fight sequences out. In B.Begins when Bruce Wayne is fighting on the ice while training with the League of Shadows that scene is excellent, you see free moving martial arts. Obviously, the Bat suit limits the actors' & stunt doubles' movement. To hide this Nolan shoots the fights REALLY close up and jumps around with the editing. It's very annoying. He should find a work around or watch a Jason Statham movie.
2. Three climaxes. I wish it ended with the Joker turning Two-Face to the dark side and with Two-Face's new look being revealed.
3. The monitor graphics representing citywide cell phone Sonar was cheap looking. It looked too much like Professor X monitoring all the X-men in the world.
4. I keep waiting for the guy from LOST to finally age --no answers here.
Outside of the poorly filmed fight scenes, minor complaints.
Pet Peeve: Luscious Fox was introduced into the Batman story-line in 1979. They just stole Q from James Bond and made him black. WTF?
Oscar note: I definitely won't complain if Ledger wins the Oscar. He was excellent.
I don't see Johnny Rotten in this character, I see Donald Duck meets Edward Scissorhands (in a good way and, yes, it's possible). I do think Jared Leto gave a better, more subtle and a more bone chilling performance portraying Mark David Chapman in the excellent and disturbing CHAPTER 27. I'm thinking it's harder to play a REAL psychopath and be bound by reality with no face paint, props or crazy laugh than to be a comic book villain. Leto probably won't get it because very few people saw CHAPTER 27 and too many small minded reviewers had a knee-jerk reaction to the subject matter of that film. I think Ledger would be in a different category anyway, I guess best supporting actor.
Listen, if someone gave you Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Christian Bale and a 100+ million dollars could you make an 8 star film? I'd go with probably. Nonetheless, the good reviews are mostly true. Fun comic book movie with a great villain.
p.s. Can the reviewers here PLEASE stop criticizing Maggie Gyllenhaal's looks? She looks fine and is solid here. Not everyone can look like Angelina Jolie.