Ledger is good at being bad; Bale bailed

Rating: 5/10 (19 July 2008)

In my 43 years on this planet, I have never seen a more manic depressive movie than The Dark Knight. This movie alternates between insufferable, back-aching boredom to frenetic, hold-on-to-your-seat action. And most of the action sequences are amazing. It's probably worth the price of admission just to see the action sequences and Ledger's performance.
It does not surprise me that this movie had FIVE WRITERS. I knew this half way through the movie before I even looked it up. How did I know this sitting in the movie? Four things will tip you off to multiple writers in a movie. (1) Haphazard, rambling direction. (2) Storyline on top of storyline on top of storyline. (3) The movie ends FIVE TIMES (one for each writer). (4) More than two hour running time (this movie is almost three hours -- remember the mess that was Spiderman 3??).
From the very beginning, this movie seems to have no direction whatsoever. You could literally take the script to this movie and divide each scene up on separate sheets of paper, throw them up in the air, gather them up and shoot this movie again and nothing would change. That's how disorganized and haphazard the story proceeds. There are at least five side-stories, all of which are hard to follow and difficult to understand how they fit in to the overall story (blowing up two ferries?).
BY FAR the most annoying part of The Dark Knight is Christian Bale's unbelievably over-the-top, angst-ridden portrayal of Batman. As Bruce Wayne, he delivers a great performance. When he straps on the gear, he becomes this growling, hilariously overwrought caricature of the Batman we know and love. He had people in my theater LAUGHING when he talked. It's a ridiculous performance and it's the director's fault.
And, who is the annoying basset hound playing Rachel? Horrible actress. Not even remotely hot. I never thought I'd miss Katie Holmes.
I'd rather see Iron Man fifty times before seeing this again.
But don't let that keep you from seeing the movie. Ledger alone is worth the price of admission.