Fails to entertain

Rating: 7/10 (15 August 2008)

The Dark Knight isn't the best comic book movie ever made. In fact, it's probably not even a good comic book movie since the primary purpose of a comic book movie is to entertain.
Despite the excellent reputation this movie's acquired over the past few weeks, the fact that it doesn't even fulfill it's primary purpose as a piece of entertainment seems to have escaped everybody's mind. And while it isn't exactly a sloppy film (indeed, much of looks spectacular), it fails to evoke virtually any emotional response whatsoever. People die, buildings explode, wrong choices are made and hundreds of other things unfold on the big screen, yet they bizarrely fail to generate any emotional reaction. The Dark Knight is both cold-blooded and cold-hearted. And while the viewer tries so hard to empathise with the characters and their seemingly desperate situations, he's left out in the cold.