Hype: A, Reality: B

Rating: 6/10 (13 August 2008)

Acting was generally above average: A.
Supporting actors (Freeman, Oldman, Caine) made the movie so much better: A+.
Heath Ledger brought his best to the game: A+.
Direction. Ambitious but in the end nothing exceptional: B.
Cinematography adequately does the job of promoting a brutal vision: B+.
Story is mostly ordinary. At times, especially towards the end, it is quite loose: B.
Length becomes too much because it is too little to do full justice to certain late characters and plot-twists : B-.
Last 30 min dilute and significantly compromise the previous two hours. : B.
Last 15 min. All aspects of the movie start to fray as the movie seeks to tie up all the angles: B-.
Last 5 min. Incoherent. Mouthing of rationales that just don't make sense: C.
Two-face portion of plot is the kernel responsible for much of the deficits that start to build in the last half hour. His character construction is in total contradiction to the movies ambition of bringing heft-filled dimensions to characters. Two-face is utterly cartoonish and flat. He is the car that clogs the highway. His motivations are solid enough. But the actions they translate into are incredibly arbitrary: C-.