A badly made, below average film that has somehow become a cultural phenomenon

Rating: 1/10 (14 May 2015)

I first feel the need to make something very clear; whilst i'm a casual fan of the Batman Comics i in no way went into this film with any presumption or expectancy of how close i wanted it to stay to Batman's origins. I will not judge The Dark Knight-or any film- based on comparisons.
So where do we start here?
Mark Kermode- who's taste and good judgement seems increasingly less reliable these days-once congratulated Director Christopher Nolan on marrying the Pop Corn Block-bluster with Art House and bringing it to the mainstream. I disagree with Kermode very very strongly about that. On the basis of this film (and subsequent ones) Nolan could not stage and shoot a decent action sequence to save his live. Take the truck chase- one of the most boring, confused and poorly executed chase sequences i have ever seen. Nolan seems determined to destroy any sense of momentum or excitement with his trademark messy camera angles and jarring edits. He inexplicably ignores every fundamental narrative technique when filming all his action set pieces, techniques that you appreciate are established for good reason when you witness the horribly convoluted mess he makes of things. If i was ever on the edge of my seat watching The Dark Knight it was because i was agitated and bored not tense. Nolan even manages to turn climatic dilemmas involving ticking bombs into yawn fest.
As for this film being regarded as intelligent, it seriously isn't.
Embarrassing pseudo-intellectuality is all that's on offer here- dished out by Michael Caine's Alfred in faux pearls of wisdom. Nolan writing monologues for Caine in which he merely states the bleeding obvious in a way that's supposed to sound profound is becoming quite a stalwart now. The use of Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox as a prominent character and as Bruce Wayne's moral conscious and voice of reason is basically a cop out by the writers; why didn't they want to fully explore the inner conflict created in Wayne that comes from being responsible for his own restraint and decisions? Despite all the War on Terror rhetoric Nolan avoids having to REALLY examine just how right wing a concept Batman is by having a moderator absolve him and make controversial decisions on his behalf.
Ledgers grungy, twitching, lip smacking joker is the only reason i gave this film any stars at all. He couldn't be more different to the clown prince of crime played by Jack Nicholson in Burton's 1989 film- yet they are definitely the same in one aspect: They both completely walk away with their movies; mainly due to the fact in neither cases is there much to walk off with.
Its called The Dark Knight and Batman is a non entity really. For a film that the makers insisted they were going for realism with there are as many plot holes and contrivances as there are in your average brain dead Hollywood silliness but its even more noticeable here because of how solemn and po-faced it all is.
Subplots that go no where. Characters that were simply pointless.
Half way in i found myself actually glancing at my watch wondering how long it could go on for; its 152 minutes running time feels more like 5 hours. 5 dismal, hours. How on earth this movie is considered an all time great is beyond me. Its an utter mess i don't care how well it did at the box office or how many critics poured over it.