MANIACAL - but 2 flaws keep it from perfection.

Rating: 9/10 (15 September 2008)

All of the praise for this movie is well founded and I enjoyed it very much. The Joker, in summation, was maniacal! Ledger's performance was the best part of this film. I won't waste your time praising this movie anymore because I'm sure it's all been said before. I would like to talk about two flaws in this movie that I noticed during my first viewing that, in my eyes, keep this film from perfection and should, in the end, keep this movie from at least the top three spots on IMDb's top 250 if not the top ten.
The Flaws 1) Two Face - In the comics and even the animated series Two Face/Harvey Dent was a man struggling internally with good and evil, the duality of man. His coin was a symbol of the two different paths a person can take, the high road of righteousness and proper justice or the low road of anger and revenge. In The Dark Knight Harvey Dent/Two Face was just a crazy villain who was turned entirely evil by the Joker leaving behind the morals of Harvey Dent. Two Face was degraded into a silly villain bent on dealing out "chance" with his coin because no part of him believes in justice. Basically the coin should represent the internal struggle in Harvey Dent between good an evil. The coin should not represent chance as the only real "justice" in the world. The end result is the same but the reasons are very different.
2) The Ferry Dilemma - I didn't like this scene because it is the only scene in the movie which portrays human nature as righteous and intelligent. 15 minutes before this scene all of Gotham was attempting to kill the man who was about the reveal the Batman's identity. Now these same citizens are on a ferry with their own lives at stake and the don't push the button to kill the others and save themselves? Not consistent at all. Throughout the entire movie people are portrayed as unintelligent and cowardly except for that one scene on the ferry. My complaint isn't in any scene individually per say, the problem is that the movie is inconsistent in it's portrayal of the nature of man.
I hope you reading this understand what I'm talking about. Thanks for reading.