Calm down everyone

Rating: 7/10 (29 July 2008)

Whoah! The current juggernaut that is The Dark Knight has been breaking records and causing fervor amongst movie goers and particularly, I see, voters here on IMDb. Is this really worth an average score on IMDb of 9.4 (as of July 30)? Of the top 10 highest rated movies on IMDb, does this deserve to be among them? I saw it in a packed movie theater, with a great cross-section of people, but mostly tweens, teens, and people up to around 30's, and at the end of it, rather than a big cheer, or round of applause or mumbling of contentment and positive comments there was just silence as every one left. I don't think it was a good stunned silence in awe of what they saw, more of a silence whilst we all wondered what the fuss was about.
Is it a good movie? Yeah, but better than the first? Nah, not really, just as good but not mind blowingly better. So, what do I consider to be the reason the people I saw it with didn't think it was worth all the fuss? Well from here on in be spoilers.
First off, it's too long. The first half zips along at a nice pace, but then from the point where Harvey Dent is burned and becomes Two-face, it drags on and on and on. Around 1 hour 20 the tweens in the audience started to get bored, around 1 hour 40 the teens started to get bored, and around 2 hours the rest of us started to wish it would end already! Also, talking of Two-face, a lot was said and hyped about how gruesome he looked. Nah, not at all. When the "look" was revealed, nobody screamed, some actually laughed at it, and the groups of girls behind us commented "that looks stupid". And what's with the need for so many villains in movies these days. The marketing campaign makes you think this is a Joker movie, so why bring Two-face into it, why isn't one bad guy enough? There's also a small appearance by Scarecrow too, which isn't really necessary. It's like they said "Well, Spider-Man 3 had 3 villains, we must match that." What about Heath Ledger as the Joker, is he as scary as people say? Is it as great a performance as people say? Well he's watchable, but better than Jack Nicholson's take on it? No, not for me. Not scary either really. I didn't feel this was a real madman at work. Worthy of an Oscar? No way man, I mean if you lost an Oscar to this guy for this performance you'd have to be seriously upset. It would be a gesture at best, and a political correctness one at that.
It's been said that the movie was based on Heat, in the way the whole cop double cross story line pans out, but I'd say you can clearly see ideas from many movies in here. The whole last fight scene with the "sonar vision" reminded me of the ending of Daredevil, and neither of them are good scenes or easy to follow. The Hong Kong scene made me think of Mission: Impossible, and the whole scene about choosing who to save (Harvey Dent or Rachel Dawes) is similar to Spider-Man, and Batman 3, it's not a new concept and you also know what will happen because you've seen these scenes before.
The action scenes are OK, but it's pretty hard to tell whats going on because of all the jump cutting, but the main thing is that Batman never really has a decent fight. He seems to dispatch the foes to easily, there's no struggle to any of his fights, and the action sequences are too short for me. They feel like they're setting up for one cool bit of action, but then they're over again and the final fight scene is a big monster of a fight scene either, it's not the best saved till last concept going on here, the best scene is half-way through with Batman on the Bat-bike chasing down the Joker in the truck.
Finally, the story line. It's OK and all, but it's quite repetitive, as there are several separate scenes which spell out how we make a choice between good and evil, how we have to choose to be good. Yeah, we got it already the first time, and it's this repetition of this concept in the scenes that make the movie drag out.
So, overall, is it a good movie? Yes, definitely watchable. Better than Batman Begins? No, not for me, if I had a choice to watch Batman Begins or the Dark Knight again, I'd choose Batman Begins. Best comic book movie adaptation ever, as I see one commentator say on here? Not the best, no, but better than most. Worth a 9.4 score on IMDb? NO WAY, that's the studio marketing machine driving that right now, I think it will come down when people calm down. Who knows, I'm sure studio people log on and push votes up, and I know I for one was waiting for this to come out and think it's one of the best movies to come out so far, but you need to not let that influence your voting. So, great movie, but not as great as people say, just don't go in expecting to see the greatest movie ever.