Overlong, dull, and pretentious. So bad it almost ruins Batman Begins

Rating: 7/10 (24 February 2013)

Jeez,where to start.Well first off I have to say that Batman Begins is not only my favourite Batman film but one of my favourite comic-book movies period.It was so good I was really looking forward to seeing this.Batman Begins looked and felt like a comic-book world, but it also had a dark tone to it and great acting which set it apart from the others.Now where did this go wrong. Well right from the beginning in all honesty.Just purely because as soon as the movie opens,you can tell that the director Chris Nolan has used a real city to stand as Gotham.In this case Chicago.Straight away you could see that it wasn't the same world as the previous film.The opening bank heist involving The Joker was good but it just looked like a scene from any crime thriller.This is supposed to be a Batman movie.For some bizarre reason the director thought he would make the tone very serious.Ridiculously serious.Now I never liked the camp tone of Tim Burton's movies,I much preferred the approach that Begins took but that film never forgot it was a comic-book.This does.It plays it so serious it just becomes ridiculous.Fair enough make the world plausible but at the end of the day it's still a story about a guy who dresses up as a Bat,in cooperation with the police and takes on strange criminals.This ain't Shakespeare for Christ sake.
In a way the film is just as amusing as Joel Schumacher's efforts because it is so overtly serious that you can't help find it funny.So many ridiculous things happen,and because it tries it's best to be a crime thriller,these things stand out.And somehow Batman ends up becoming a supporting player in his own film.Something the director said Burton had got wrong and he would never do.Yeah right.
It somehow manages to be overlong in length but too short in many scenes.It just keeps cutting back and forth between characters and sub-plots and mini sub-plots it becomes annoying.It just seems like a bunch of ideas thrown together without any logic.And Harvey Dent's sudden character change is laughable and Joker's anti-climatic end very frustrating.
Here's the parts in the film that really annoyed the hell out of me.
The Joker pulls up at the side of a police vehicle and starts shooting but the cops make no effort to shoot back and just carry on cruising along at the same speed.What the hell.
Batman saves Rachel from falling off a building after The Joker crashes a party and the scene just ends.Seriously.This is a sadistic,psychotic killer we are talking about,are we really just supposed to believe that he would walk out and leave.
Batman refuses to kill people but has no problem riding along on the Batpod blowing cars up to move out of his way.How would he know he's not going to kill someone doing that.
And the main part that bugged me is in a sequence where Batman using some gadgetry flips over a truck with The Joker in and he emerges from the wreck conscious and unscathed.And yet immediately after,Batman somehow gets knocked out by coming off his Batpod which slowly he grinds to a halt.I was like WTF.I thought he was just pretending it was so stupid.
The film doesn't have many redeeming merits at all and almost undid the achievement that Begins made.But not quite because that is still a great Batman film,unlike this wannabe crime drama with Batman and The Joker.
A generous 6/10.