all you need to know is......

Rating: 1/10 (29 July 2008)

I saw this movie on a Monday afternoon in hopes of avoiding a long wait and big crowds at the theater. Good plan. It worked. The movie didn't. Many reviewers have already commented on the gross mediocrity of this film so I'll skip that part. There were some very good, though isolated, moments in the story: a lesson about how torture is wrong and doesn't work, the equal value of all lives regardless of how they have been lived, "abridged" civil rights are neither civil nor right, etc. I like all those concepts and they are certainly worthy of exploration given our current political state.
To me, however, the most prominent feature of this film was neither Heath Ledger, (whom I greatly respect as an actor), Christian Bale, nor the script, directing, story line, performances, or suspense, but rather the gorrific violence that punctuated almost every moment of the more than two and a half hours this thing went on. Everything in this movie explodes!!! And the cut aways in the editing do nothing to mitigate the impact of all the slashing, stabbing, pounding, bludgeoning, shooting, and impaling that becomes ridiculous about halfway through. And though I have enormous respect for him, Ledger's Joker was basically Ted Bundy with face paint. I think the inspiration for this film came more from Oliver Stone's "Natuarl Born Killers" than from anything that was ever written in a comic book.
All you need to know is this... In the last ten minutes of the film, with the body count hovering somewhere around 100, a scene begins to unfold where a young child is about to be murdered in cold blood, (those of you who have seen the movie know what I'm talking about). The scene goes on for what I thought was an excruciatingly long time, but even as it was just beginning I was thinking to myself, "no, no, no, this is wrong. This should not be done this way in a movie". Then somewhere in the theater, behind me, a child began sobbing uncontrollably. Yes, real terror, real horror, real fear, a real child, right there in the theater. The scene finally came to an end. The sobbing didn't. As the lights came up for us to leave I saw a couple escorting their approximately 12 year old son out of the theater, still sobbing, and hanging on to his parents' clothing as they walked out.
I don't blame the parents. This movie's PG13 rating is unconscionable. This is a "Batman" movie! With a PG13 rating! "Batman" originated from a children's comic book series. One would think that this movie would be a safe experience for children. It's not. Given the grotesque thread of constant violence that runs from the opening credits to the closing credits it's not even suitable for adults. Several of the postings here at IMDb with the lowest ratings have noted that they are putting their rating as low as possible to balance out the overly generous perfect scores that have vaulted this movie into the position of being one of the greatest film ever,according to IMDb. Not me. I really didn't like this movie. And in the last ten minutes of it I came to hate it. It does not do service to the Batman franchise, or movies in general. There is not a shred of "comic book" appeal in it anywhere, and it will take it's place as one of the most uselessly violent movies ever made. That this offering has the broad appeal it has makes me a little sad, and sick inside. And if I could speak for the poor kid that was sitting behind me during this bloated gore fest I'd say this, "thanks for the memories".