Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Rating: 3/10 (3 September 2008)

I don't think that in my quarter century of living I've ever felt more disconnected from the pop-culture at large than after seeing this movie. With all the hype and uniform praise I thought beforehand that this is at least a solid piece of cinematic craft, maybe embellished slightly by Heath Ledger's unexpected death.
Unfortunately, this movie is rock solid proof that sometimes mass delusion can strike an entire society at one time. There is absolutely no way that this film can be regarded not just as a masterpiece, but even as half-way decent.
Let's get to the point. First - the plot. It's just unconvincing as a whole. Batman is basically a side character with little to do as he takes backseat on the Joker train. He whines incessantly about how no one needs him and how he needs to hang up his cape. Do it already! His troubled relationship with Rachel Dawes has zero chemistry and it's hard to care about the outcome. The idea of Joker being an anarchist, goalless and malevolent force sounds good on paper, but it translates to aimlessness on the screen. Joker shows up out of nowhere seemingly with no one backing him and then... snap! It seems like the whole world is at his service. Not only he has no trouble hijacking a school bus (and then blending into a line of school buses after driving out of a half collapsed bank), hacking into the public TV feed or rigging an entire hospital with explosives; he apparently does it with such ease that the creators didn't feel the need to reveal a shred of information about how he did it. Many events in the movie make absolutely no sense whatsoever. For example - what was the purpose of Lt. Gordon faking his death? And why did they make a point of showing the scene where his family is informed of the death - was that just to get the audience to buy into it as well? That's just dumb and a waste of time. Why did Harvey Dent become evil all of a sudden? Sure he was badly burned, but he had to know the risks going into this business and he had a steely resolve just minutes prior. There are many other plot issues, but it's pointless listing them all. They are there and easy to spot.
The acting in the movie is a-OK, but most of the actors just don't have any good lines as their characters are irrelevant puppets. Heath Ledger is good for sure, but his take on the character gets tedious after a while - mostly from overexposure. Maggie Gyllenhaal is a good actress, but she's just so wrong for the role. She's a nice-girl-next-door type and as superficial as it sounds, it's hard to believe that she would have two hotshots like Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne chasing after her. Christian Bale has zero material to work with and they've turned Morgan Freeman into a moralizing nerd. Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart and especially Michael Caine do a decent job considering the script they were given to work with.
The screenplay is atrocious, incongruent and messy. It's like the movie was cut-up into a thousand pieces of varying length, reshuffled and then strung together. There is no natural progression of events and subsequent scenes frequently befuddle. It takes a couple of minutes to figure out what the hell is going on or why should we care. It's just poorly done.
For all the car chases, fight scenes, and giant explosions, the movie is just unforgivably boring. It's a combination stemming from a poor script, naive (or barely existent) plot, flat characters (that can't be remotely identified with much less loved or hated), and a general lack of good sense. There is also an annoying feeling that the creators had a rather low opinion of the viewers intelligence or maybe they just rushed the movie and had to come up with a lot of material in a little time, hence the low quality.
Before I end this overlong diatribe, let me just mention three scenes that I absolutely cannot get over with in terms of their pointlessness and stupidity. 1. Batman is riding his wicked-cool motorcycle approaching an aftermath of a multi vehicle crash and accelerates aiming it straight at the Joker. What he is trying to accomplish is never explained. One thing certain is that at the last moment he veers right, barely avoiding the villain, and drives his bike without touching the brakes, straight into a wall. I mean he drives it into a wall (or overturned truck, can't remember) full speed like a blind man. Had he even chosen to hit the Joker, how the hell did he expect to stop? 2. This one actually occurs a couple of times at least. Batman leaps out of a 20th story window and falls onto the ground unharmed. Unharmed! He didn't have a parachute, a bungee cord, and he didn't even spread his cape on the way down. He just hit full blast and walked away. And on one occasion his squeeze Ms Dawes fell with him and experienced a similarly puzzling lack of after-effects. Filmmakers, needless to say, didn't find it prudent to even try to provide some explanation.
3. Joker enters the hospital in a nurse uniform. That should present a logistical problem by itself, but OK. However, not only he seems to move around the hospital freely, he also does it still wearing his face paint. I mean the lower half his face is covered by a protective mask, but the rest is clearly visible. What's even funnier is that Harvey Dent looks at Joker straight in the eyes and the face paint doesn't give him away until he takes of the mask. Is this a cartoon?