I'm not a Batman geek or overexcited teenager, but I still liked this movie a lot

Rating: 10/10 (22 August 2008)

I really don't like to jump on a band wagon like this. Though I had been longing for this movie for over a year and though I was expecting great things from it, this nerdy and geeky talk of comic book fans ("best movie ever") really got onto my nerves. Living in Germany, I had to wait until yesterday to finally watch the movie and I could watch all the craziness going on on the net from afar. I still wanted to like the movie, but I really feared that all this hype might ruin it for me.
Well, now that I have finally seen it I have to say that my fears were to a large part unnecessary. the movie is great and I think it is as good as a movie like this can be. Though I still get annoyed by teenagers who yell that this is the best movie ever, I can understand where they are coming from. Every decade or so there is one movie that becomes a real phenomenon. And if you never experienced this than you become part of the group that says "this is our movie and we won't let grumpy idiots take it away from us". When I was at that age for me it was "Jurassic Park" and later to a certain extent also "Titanic" and I bet most of the kids who hype this movie have not been consciously around then.
I thought the acting was great overall. Heath Ledger definitely stands out. Christian Bale is great, too. His work as the twisted Batman/Bruce Wayne character has to be a lot more subtle in this movie and he achieves that wonderfully. Unfortunately, due to Ledger's tour de force performance, Bale's work seems to go unappreciated by many here. I could go on and on. There is not a single weak performance in this movie (although the Mayor becomes a bit distracting because of his heavy eye-liner, but that's not the actor's fault).
I love the scope of this movie. The main storyline is always in focus but there still is room for subplots here and there which are all set up perfectly and fit within the overall plot. And even though you might wish to see more of some characters (like Alfred) you nevertheless don't feel that they were underused. The pacing is great as well. You keep being interested the entire time and the movie flows so naturally that you never get the feeling that this action sequence here happens because there has to be an action sequence.
So, is this the best movie ever? I leave that up to everyone to decide for himself. It is not perfect but no movie, even the best, is completely flawless. There are things in this movie that I didn't like too much. I wish they had done more with Two-Face and the whole bit about the cell phones seemed a bit gimmicky for me (I also didn't like Batman's eyes in these scenes).
But there is so much to like in this film. One has to applaud the filmmakers for going against conventions by for example killing of characters not just at the climax of the movie but right in the middle. I also loved it that the movie does not end with the big machine of the villain that he has to start in order to rule the world (even "Batman begins" fell into that trap). They found a perfectly neat solution to it all and though I think the ending is not perfect, I think it still is great as it is.
The same thing can be said about the whole movie. I love it that the script of this movie is so smart that it even takes time to ask philosophical questions. Sure, it doesn't go too deep but it is mentioned in a way that most moviegoers will be able to think about this.
I had a perfect time at the cinema and think that for what it is, this movie can indeed be called a masterpiece.