Batman himself could have had more edges

Rating: 8/10 (25 July 2008)

To me, the movie was good-- and it felt longer than the two plus hours I was in the theatre.
My only quibble was as a sequel to 'Batman Begins', Bruce Wayne lacked the 'Obsessive Edge' I expected to see played against the Joker's 'Sociopathic Zeitgeist'. This Joker was the true Murderous Madman of Arkham Asylum, but The Batman had been reduced to a just a rich guy playing a superhero almost for the heck of it. Thus, I saw an imbalance. In the end, The Joker stole the show while Bruce Wayne and 'The Batman' ended the movie in a dribble of a kind of moral maundering.
I don't fault the script-- the script had in it the bones of a real molten interplay between what are two dangerously opposite obsessive personalities-- but Christian Bale played a softened Bruce Wayne.
It's sad that Mr. Ledger is no longer with us. The possibility of his Joker really sparking and exploding against a now outlawed Batman in another sequel is gone forever.