Not a good Batman film. Over-rated in the Extreme.

Rating: 1/10 (23 November 2011)

damn i cant believe the reviews for this film. I've only seen this twice and don't plan on seeing it again anytime soon, and this coming from a lifelong batman MOVIE fan (note the emphasis on MOVIE, not COMICS).I've seen the original film 200000 times and i loved all the sequels, even the "campy" Schumacher ones. but boy did they take this franchise in a reverse direction. JUST because batman & robin was terrible and silly doesn't make Christopher Nolan's films the comic book equivalent of the "godfather" or gone with the frigging wind. if anything, they only show how amazing Tim Burton's 2 original dual pictures are, and how utterly lame the Nolan ones are. not only is "the dark knight" worse then batman begins, its downright ridiculous! you feel like you need a degree in law to understand what the hell they are talking about. its like CSI meets Gotham city. you might as well call this movie GCPD or GCPD Blue, or any of those law and order-type shows that this movie seems to copy from. its even more silly when you look at the lengths the director went through to make this batman movie as boring as possible. they seem to think "if the story is engaging enough, we don't have to make the movie visually appealing". thats like saying "if the story is good enough, we don't have to make batman look awesome in the comics".
lets get this review started shall we? first, the joker. we are all familiar I'm sure with jack Nicholson's classic portrayal from the original film. it was truly amazing, he made the character eerie, funny, and charming all at once. yet he seemed to understand that this character is based off cartoons and as such you cant take yourself all that seriously. this is the complete opposite of what heath ledger does with the same role. but i guess you cant really blame the actor entirely with Nolan wanting to change up batman and his world to the point that the characters aren't really who they should be. first off, joker doesn't fall in a vat of acid like the original, he puts on makeup and cuts his own smile and dyes his hair green. i would hate to see his joker in the rain, he would look rather pathetic as a joker. i can guarantee that if Nicholson didn't already do this classic comics origin 20 years ago in the awesome first film, fan boys would be crying that joker was turned into common serial killer done a million times over in other films and not the funny amusing comic book clown prince of crime that everyone is more familiar with. oh, but since Nicholson already played THAT version to perfection, Nolan was somehow able to get away with turning joker into a common killer that we've seen time and again. Heath didn't really even play the﻿ Joker, he played "generic serial killer bad guy #13314". for those who would defend ledger by saying he was "really scary and terrifying", sure ill give them that, but to say he was better than NICHOLSON?!? JACK FREAKING NICHOLSON?!? PLEEEEEEEEEEASE!!! The role was virtually MADE for the man when he was born.﻿ Nicholson captured the true essence of the Joker; a psychopathic man child out not to prove a good damn thing, but to kill and mess around with people all for the laughs. THESE are traits that define the Joker, not some cliché ideal of wanting people to accept that evil exists in all of us. and that brings me to another point, whats with this jokers anarchist pseudo-philosophic rambling monologues? boy Nolan LOVES these cardboard deep monologues he has his character spew out all the time, even in the last film. its laughable at how serious he takes the movie. did he forget this is based off of comic books and that there are supposed to be fun elements in the film? Tim Burton struck the perfect balance of comic book and reality. its somewhere right in the middle. Nolan puts a guy in a bat suit and places him right in middle of an unaltered real life city. it makes him look silly and out of place.
I'm not gonna dwell much on bales batman. this guy cant save any movie hes in. people seem to love this guy, or think hes some brilliant actor, but hes obviously just a wooden actor and once again phoned in his "performance" in this film. to quote Christopher walken from Batman Returns, "hes just a poor schmo, who got lucky". his batman voice is ludicrous. ludicrous! i still don't understand why they decided to make batman sound like an engine turning over. every time he talks he makes me laugh. the only decently done things in this film is how Harvey dent is portrayed (pre-twoface) and the pretty nifty bat pod, that has ONE cool scene in which it bursts from the bat mobile. but again, the action scenes never pick up because of Nolan's hard on for realism, so nothing in the new Batman films ever makes you go "OOH Awesome" for too long. this movie just dragged and i remember looking at the clock as to when it would end. they make it feel like the new Batman's are "smart" but honestly, in a comic book movie who the heck wants to listen to all this law and order talk and long drawn out "deep" monologues? its so....meh. i'd rather watch jack Nicholson laugh like a maniac shooting his henchman and making me laugh. who can forget gems like "bob, gun". today you have "why so serious?". yeah thats what i want to know, why so serious Nolan?? why cant you make batman fun? nothing against having darkness, Burton's films were dark too but not so much to the point where they weren't fun or exciting. again, disappointed.