Falls short of greatness

Rating: 10/10 (27 July 2008)

I finally watched it this evening and i have to say i was thoroughly entertained. no question about it. However, The Dark Knight falls short of greatness for several reasons. But if anything about the movie is great, then it has to be Heath Ledger's performance as the joker. I think he is the reason why some people are (wrongly) jumping on the bandwagon to label TDK as the greatest movie of all time. At best it might be the greatest superhero movie ever made but i wont pass any judgment on that particular point.
I give this movie a 7 and that is mostly because of the entertainment it provided and ledger's joker. I can't possibly give it more than a 7 after seeing how unconvincing the Harvey Dent/Two-face character became towards the end. His transformation is hardly given enough time and as a result is totally unconvincing. As far as i can remember, it was not foreshadowed either, nor did his actions later on make any sense (e.g. why would he let Joker go free but decide to kill Maroni (the mob leader)? because according to Two-face, "the Joker is just a mad dog. I want whoever let him off the leash." lmao! give me a break!) Okay next up is the ferry subplot or whatever you might wanna call it. I've seen some people branding it as "useless". I beg to differ. I think the subplot/scene had great potential, only if the director/scriptwriter chose NOT to resort to the typical "good overcomes evil" thing which is prevalent in Hollywood and i guess in Disney and superhero movies in particular.
First of all, although none of the ferries blew each other up, the point that the Joker was trying to prove was well-proved (at least to the audience). Because, think about it. The ferry voted and as much 400 people were FOR blowing the other ferry up while ONLY 150 people were against it. however, when it came to actually press the button of the detonator, nobody had the guts to do it. Fair enough, but how in the world does that prove the Joker wrong? If anything, it proves that not only "deep down, everyone is as ugly as him", but they are cowards also! Therefore, to pass it off as some kind of a "good vs evil" thing where good wins the day is a futile attempt. And last but not least, the idea of all of Gotham's notorious thugs and criminals suddenly becoming moral beings with no intention of survival was laughable.
You see, this is where the Joker should have had his "moral" victory over Batman. The people in the ferries should have killed each other. And in that way, some kind of a balance would have been established and The Dark Knight would have truly become a "dark" film, because as we know, in the end Batman does not let the Joker win by taking all the blame on himself. And that brings me to the next point.
The ending was forced and didn't make much sense. So the highly principled DA of Gotham goes nuts after his fiancé's death and after losing half his face and then, ACTUALLY KILLED a mob leader and corrupt cops? And Batman takes the blame for this? lol WHY ON EARTH would people hate Batman for killing a mob leader and corrupt cops? Again, makes no sense.
So these are the few things that bugs me most and I'm not even gonna start with the pretty poor script with its flaws and stretches (which are quite a lot even for a superhero movie). As for the entertainment value, yes i was entertained as I've said before but i have to say that i found the action sequences to be very ordinary. I think at the end of the day, it is Heath Ledger who makes it a (slightly) better movie than Batman Begins. I can't say Christian Bale gave a good performance because frankly, he didn't have much to do! But it's a shame that we won't be seeing Heath Ledger in a Joker makeup again. It breaks my heart. If I give this movie a 7 out of 10, I would have to give Ledger a solid 10. I hope he at least gets an Oscar nomination.