Batman's War on Terror.

Rating: 1/10 (23 August 2008)

Ledger gives a powerful performance as the joker, but the rest of the movie was a bit out of focus. Surprisingly the movie revolves around Harvey Dent. "The White Knight" Unfortunately Eckhart was bland as Harvey Dent and his fall to the dark side was almost corny. Shame really as this was Harvey Dent's story rather than Batman's.
Speaking of which, I have never seen Christian Bale act this poorly. The man is one of the greatest actors of his generation and now his performance was totally uninspired. The Batman voice is incredibly distracting and as Bruce Wayne he just sleepwalks through his scenes. I also noticed that he wasn't as buff as he was in Begins. In all honesty there wasn't much for him to do here though. The script simply doesn't give Batman much to do, other than fight and beat up people. Bruce Wayne is the billionaire Playboy and that's about it.
Freeman and Cain virtually play the same character. They do it well but the cast is too bloated already so they don't get much screen time.
Maggie Gyllenhaal was great. She was able to bring warmth to her portrayal of Rachel Dawes. But unfortunately we don't get to see much of her either.
The philosophical themes in this movie are barely explored. Every hero turns into a villain? Or some such nonsense. Every firefighter will turn evil unless they die? Very shallow and laughable. Only Jokers nihilistic speeches were convincing. Every good hearted person either dies or gets horribly mutilated. And then turns to evil. Batman beats prisoners and brakes peoples legs. Why so violent?
Then you have your boring action sequences, the mandatory car chases and numerous explosions. The Dark Knight is actually an action movie much like Die Hard. Only the nihilistic philosophy sets it apart and gives it a unique flavor. If you are a big action movie fan you'll probably enjoy this movie.
The Dark Knight isn't as good as Batman Begins. Batman Begins was a character study. How a traumatized young boy became a hero and how he turned his anger and fear into something positive. Here we see the hero corrupted by Joker. He is violent and angry. No longer a hero. He is willing to lie to the people of Gotham because they couldn't handle the truth. This sends a dubious message.
In fact this movie has way more propaganda than your average summer blockbuster. Invading privacy, torturing prisoners and lying to the public.... But It's cool cause it's Batman. Kids wanna be like Batman and therefore Batman is cool even while torturing prisoners. Dark Knight could be viewed as legitimizing Dick Cheney's War on terror. It's pretty disgusting. "We have to work the Dark side..."- Mr Cheney said after 911. Batman agrees.