A massive let down after the brilliant Batman Begins

Rating: 1/10 (25 July 2008)

Review of one of the most surprising let downs follows. There are no spoilers, the film spoils itself enough...
It's fair to say that prior to this film coming out I had concerns over the use of the Joker in this film. Concerns that only got more pronounced when I'd heard they cast Health Ledger in the role. Then I saw Brokeback Mountain and I became convinced that actually the guy had a raw talent and that maybe, just maybe, he could pull it off. Until the trailer came out and I was immediately concerned again. So how was Heath? Neither good nor bad. He was a live wire, and gleefully unpredictable and a shambolic, almost serpentine presence at points. But it wasn't spectacular. Talks of post-humous Oscar nods though are an exceptional exaggeration and unfortunately I believe this to be motivated by grief for Ledger.
Aaron Ekhart's not bad, but I'm not really sure anyone knew why he was really there. I did NOT believe in Harvey Dent. Maggie Gyllenhaal was awful. It is a terrifying thing to say that Katie Holmes was better. You actually have your fingers crossed that someone will kill her right from the start. Morgan Freeman has a couple of nice moments but despite being given more screen time he contributes very little. Same with Gary Oldman. Seriously - what happened? Even Christian Bale seems to have lost a sense of what he's doing, Batman's voice getting ever closer to sounding like Rod Stewart's singing voice that at times I couldn't take it seriously, assuming you can make out what he's saying at all! It's difficult to comprehend that the same cast is in this film and Batman Begins, they really don't stack up side by side at all. Everone feels wasted.
The Dark Knight is over long, it takes forever to really get any momentum going and then at the point you think it's starting it fails to launch. There are set pieces that don't really hang together and if you think about any of them for too long (which you will, as it does tend to drag) you'll find that they don't all make sense. One of the things that made Batman Begins so strong was a sense of realism - even going to great lengths to try to rationalize the ridiculous (a man dressed as a bat....). Tragically, The Dark Knight seems to have forgotten this entirely. Yes the Joker is larger than life but does that explain the obviously CGI enhanced stupid moments such as the Bat Pod cycling up a wall to flip over? There are too many of these moments - turning every cell phone into a sonar transponder in order to trace the Joker. Um? What? Also EVERYONE felt very written. Everyone's dialogue seemed to be furthering the plot rather than sounding like anything approaching reality. Michael Cain turns into Aunt May giving twee and convenient platitudes and nothing else - there's no sense of connection between him and anyone else. Gyllenhaal - even managing to leave twee and convenient letters to be read at twee and convenient moments. Aaron Ekhart seems to basically behave like a character bio rather than feeling terribly real and the whole descent into Two-Face thing STILL doesn't work.
If you loved Batman Begins (and I did) you won't love this I'm afraid. You may not hate it, but I don't think you'll be impressed. I hope to watch this again at some point when the let down has passed me by and I'll hopefully enjoy it a bit more. There are three recent films I've been to see I had low expectations for - Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and The Dark Knight. The first two surprised me and exceeded my expectations. The latter has left me feeling a bit flat. I'm just very disappointed, Batman Begins set a very high mark. The Dark Knight by comparison is almost worth avoiding.