What a disappointment

Rating: 2/10 (2 April 2009)

Okay. Heath Ledger was worth it. He has created a classic screen villain with his Joker and he deserved his (posthumous) Oscar. The rest of it? Whaaaa... Batman seems to be another classic film franchise that now takes itself seriously. James Bond has become a serious guy and the movies no longer are fun. Same here. Remember both the old Batman TV series and the early movies with their WHAM POW graphics and their delightfully camp dialogue? (Holy hockey pucks, Batman....) (Come to think of it, where was Robin in this Batman outing? Probably auditioning for Hamlet.) Chicago just doesn't make it as Gotham City which used to have such a dark, surrealistic quality. And I had trouble sorting out the good guys and the bad guys. There are no white hats and black hats here. They're all varying shades of grey. Even Batman is a bad guy. Or is he? The effects are good but no better than what the computer now has made routine. Really. They have to do better than blowing up everything in sight and rolling police cars like yo-yo's. Been there, done that! I won a voucher for a free movie in a scratch and win promotion. It was due to expire yesterday so I thought I'd pick up a movie I wanted to see. I had read all the rave reviews about this one and about its various awards. Even the IMDb rating is a rare 9. Gotta be a great evening. Uh uh. At least it didn't cost me anything other than a couple of confused hours.