This movie was a joke...

Rating: 1/10 (28 July 2008)

C'mon folks, you call this movie a masterpiece? The greatest movie of all-time? Sheesh, I thought people had higher standards than this.
The only reason why people went to see this movie is because it was Heath Ledger's last performance. And boy, does he deliver! But is it really worthy of an Oscar? Well, that depends on how you interpret The Joker.
To be fair, there is no right way to interpret The Joker. His past is just as mysterious as his motivation. But how can you create a character with absolutely no history and expect him to be believable? In the comics, his name was Jack Napier, a thug/ comedian who fell into a bath of chemicals that bleached his skin as white as snow. He had only one motivation for all the mayham he caused -- to amuse himself. This back story, that I've just given you, makes the villain far more credible than he was in the film. Even Charles Manson, one of the greatest killers of all- time, had a motivation for killing that made sense to him, but in this film we are never given any insight as to what this might be.
Okay, so I have no problem with Heath Ledger winning an Oscar here. Then why did this movie suck? Because it was created for shock value instead of for entertainment.
This movie has no plot. "The Joker wrecks havoc on Gotham," is pretty much the only storyline you get. There are cars blowing up, people blowing up, people screaming blue murder and other bits of mayhem that make as much a sense as people screaming for mercy in a Godzilla film. Did Batman really have to fly all the way to Hong Kong to capture a corrupt banker or was that a ploy from the Chinese government to showcase the area for the 2008 Olympics? Why can't Christian Bale fight after all this time? Do you think those people on the boat would have talked things out in a "civilized" manner with the bombs about to explode? Me thinks pandemonium would have ensued, and that in the real world they would have dead in 10 seconds flat. Can you really set 30 million cell phones off to find one person? I think the writers wrote themselves into a corner on that one.
Another thing that bugs me about this film is Two-face. The movie doesn't give lip-service to his love for duality at all. He just wakes up and goes "Gee, I have a burnt face. May as well use it for scaring kids," and runs off plugging people, serving up his own brand of justice. To say that he was a hero was laughable, as people serve up their own brand of justice all the time. All you need to do is walk down the wrong alley at the wrong time to see what I mean.
Overall, this film was terrible. Christian Nolan's vision of creating a modern Batman kills the whimsical charm and poetic lyricism established in the earlier movies directed by Tim Burton. Besides, Danny Elfman's theme will always be the defining music of the Dark Knight.
By the way, what ever happened to the Bat Cave? They should never have taken that out.