'The Dark Knight' is one of my all time favorites BUT OVERRATED AS HELL!

Rating: 10/10 (18 February 2013)

Recently, I've been going through the IMDb Top 20 and I find the Dark Knight is actually positioned steadily at #7, ahead of the first two Star Wars movies, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Forrest Gump, Fight Club and Goodfellas. This is insane.
The hype and anticipation surrounding The Dark Knight after the success of Batman Begins was HUGE! Everyone was nervous to see Heath Ledger play the Joker, and people feared that he truly wasn't ready. But then we saw the movie. And our opinions changed. They changed so much, that after the great actor died (R.I.P), people decided it was only fair that this movie be placed as #1 or #2 on IMDb's Top 250 when it first came out. This is absurdly frustrating.
The story in the movie is very effectively told but is not something out of the ordinary. In terms of plot, the most clever plot in the IMDb Top 20 goes to Pulp Fiction. Anyways, plot is great, characters are mainly great and there is one or two emotional moments in the film. The acting is good, except for Heath Ledger who OWNS it. Christian Bale perhaps tried too hard at certain moments to watch Ledger but the cast was mainly fantastic consisting of Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman and Michael Caine.
The cinematography and visual effects are brilliant but not revolutionary. SFX were revolutionalized by the Matrix, cinematography was changed by Braveheart and Lord of the Rings. The directing by Nolan is great and the dialogue is mainly good, and simply brilliant for the Joker scenes. Other dialogue scenes contain over the top cheesy moments that don't always need to be there.
Now, here is the biggest issue: Why on EARTH would this movie need to be amongst the Top 10 IMDb movies. Its fanboyism and a way to honor Heath Ledger's incredible performance surrounding his death. I consider Dark Knight to never be the greatest action movie ever made: That goes to Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Matrix and Terminator 2.
This movie, is superb but overrated. There is nothing, apart from Ledger's performance that is out of reach from every other movie. The extraordinary hype surrounding the movie was so huge that Batman fanboys could never bear to give the movie a 9 or an 8 if necessary. I consider Batman Begins the best because no-one had to steal the show, the story was more interesting, the characters were better done and the movie wasn't anywhere near as hyped. In fact, people feared Nolan wasn't up to it.
As Ledger died a short time before the movie was released, everyone flocked the cinemas to see what the guy was made of and when the movie was over, despite not maybe loving it, people would've said "Wow! A great performance by a lost hero" and decided to give this movie such a high rating.
I'll conclude here, The Dark Knight is a fantastic piece of entertainment HOWEVER should never be considered one of cinema's greatest masterpieces as Batman Begins, in my honest opinion, is superior to the Dark Knight