Entertaining, but NOT a masterpiece. Uh-uh. Not by a longshot.

Rating: 1/10 (18 July 2008)

Wow. Can't believe how high the rating is for this film on IMDb. Did we all see the SAME film?? Wow.
Okay, just got back from seeing this, and I gotta say, I was very, very disappointed. Overall, the movie had its moments, but maaaan oh maaaan, was this movie WAY TOO LONG. And unnecessarily so. So far, Christian Bale has proved to be a satisfying Batman, but NO ONE has lived up to my vision of what Batman should truly be up on the big screen. That said, let's move on.
THE VIEWING EXPERIENCE: The WORSE PART about this movie for me was the editing. It was unforgivably choppy. Too many scenes ended too abruptly and I guess a whole lot of stuff happened off camera because there were a considerable amount of "GAPING PLOT HOLES".
THE ACTION: Very intense from the beginning which was great, but the movie peetered out toward the end. That whole scene with Harvey Dent holding Gordon's family hostage was just way too long and too over the top. Dent's transformation into evil happened too quickly, which made his descent into "Bat-Villain" unconvincing. It was like he was having a very bad tantrum, that's all. He needed to be spanked or hugged. Nope. Despite what you may read, there wasn't ANYTHING poetic about it. Sorry, Freudians.
COOLEST SCENES: I really liked the confrontation scene at the jail between Batman and The Joker. Great, great stuff. Batman was extremely close to "losin' it" and I thought for a second he just may kill him, he just might snap and do it. But nah. Batman isn't nearly as amoral as ol' Clown Face. Another scene I liked was when Batman was in Hong Kong kickin' some baddies asses, then he grabs the head honcho Asian dude(can't remember his name, sorry), launches some balloon thingy in the sky, hooks himself and the baddie to an oncoming plane (which of course was all arranged...I wonder who was flying the thing? Lucius?) which takes off into the night sky. That scene was TIGHT. Executed brilliantly.
MOST MEMORABLE SCENES: The Joker making that pencil "disappear." The Joker walking away in a nurse's uniform as bombs go off behind him. Classic. Those images will stay with me for a long, long time.
COOLEST TOY: The Batpod. Geeks will cheer.
PERFORMANCES: Heath Ledger was good, yes. Did he give me chills and simply blow me away? Sadly, no. But perhaps I was expecting WAY TOO MUCH. After all, the buzz on his performance as The Joker started way back in January. Does he deserve a posthumous Oscar? No. An Oscar nomination should more than suffice for the "kudos" he's been getting. His death is what has swayed, or rather, "manipulated" people to say this is the most incredible performance ever seen on screen. Don't be so gullible. It's a good performance, don't get me wrong. But it's not history making. However, Heath now makes Nicholson's Joker look as campy and as ridiculous as Cesar Romero. Christian Bale had his moments; so did Aaron Eckhart. Gary Oldman is always a pleasure to watch. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine will always be veterans of their craft. Everyone else could have phoned it in.
THE MUSIC: Not memorable. And in some scenes, shrill and annoying. Where or WHERE is Danny Elfman?
WHAT BUGGED ME THE MOST: Batman's gravelly, and super LOUD voice. It sounded completely ridiculous and over-amplified. Not menacing. Just ridiculous. I thought the script tried too hard to send a message. What we got was sophomoric rhetoric which was overly "preachy".
THE ENDING: A dud. Even though the movie was an agonizing 2.5 hours, I still felt something was missing. Batman being "hunted down" by Gordon and the GCPD was lame. The Nolan brothers should've written a much more satisfying ending. I felt cheated. There was not enough of a satisfying denouement for The Joker. He was just left hanging there upside down, giggling like a school girl on crack. They should've given The Joker a much more satisfying final scene. Like that last shot of Anthony Perkins in "Psycho", staring chillingly into the camera. Joker's exit should have been just as memorable and just as SCARY. What they gave us was WEAK. Pure and simple. And that really, really SUCKS since it was indeed Heath's final scene. His final image up on the big screen doing what he loved the most. They could've given him a better tribute than that.
WHAT I'D LIKE TO HAVE SEEN: The Joker being FUNNY. Come on, people! That's what The Joker has ALWAYS been about. Not campy, but funny. Heath's interpretation of The Joker was nothing like in the comics. I understand the Nolan brothers wanting to be dark and all that, but let's get real and stick to story origins, okay? The Joker is a demented psychopath yes, but he's also supposed to be wickedly funny. You know, laughing at his own sick twisted humor. We got NONE OF THAT from Heath's portrayal. What he played was a character who should've been named The Sicko. Or The Money Burner. Or Chaos Man. In any case, the Nolan brothers, to me, failed to give us The Joker we all really wanted to see. Again, I liked Heath's performance. I did. But there was still so much missing.
OVERALL REVIEW: I was entertained by this film, but was sadly disappointed with the pacing, the editing and some of the gaping plot holes. And what sucks is that I'm a HUGE Batman fan. HUGE!!! I SOOOO wanted this film to be a masterpiece, but it wasn't. Not by a longshot.
I actually gave this movie a 6 out of 10 stars, but most of you made this movie's rating on IMDb just unforgivably TOO HIGH.