What happened to IMDb?

Rating: 7/10 (27 July 2008)

I walked into this movie anticipated something absolutely incredible. I had not come across a single bad review and this movie taking over the no.1 spot in the top 250 had to mean there was some reason to watch the movie. I finally caught the late release here yesterday and then came the disappointment. The main theme of the story is good. The basic point was to show how the joker would fight to bring down society in Gotham in several ways. He would continue killing until he can prove a point that society would slowly become a killing free for all and dog eat dog. One of the potential victims is supposed to be Harvey Dent (played by Aaron Eckhart), the 'white knight' of Gotham who crusades against crime and brings down mafia dons in record numbers. Harvey Dent is incidentally Two Face's son who obviously should have something in him to make him the 'dark knight'. Posters and trailers over the last several months focused on the Joker and successfully created a good suspense, not to mention the tragic death of Heath Ledger. But, this movie got lost amongst several high profile actors to bring you...nothing. There is a buildup to the dark past of the Joker but that is either forgotten or completely omitted. There was an attempt to show how Harvey Dent was slowly becoming vulnerable to the Joker but that came about fairly abruptly. And instead of focusing on how the Joker attacks Batman and Harvey Dent, they threw in extra characters, several explosions and just generally a lot of pandemonium that only provided distracting shock value. The movie drags and all in all it's just hype. The reason why I think this is popular is because a lot of superhero films just are. They're some of the biggest grossing films on opening weekends and have kind of a cult like following similar to the Star Wars and LOTR trilogies. This is no.1 in IMDb but of course it's not supposed to rate the quality of movies. It would rank nowhere near the top in overall quality. Unless you're a die hard batman fan or have some friends to accompany, wait to watch this movie on DVD if you have to.