Really didn't like it (warning - some spoilers)

Rating: 2/10 (8 August 2008)

When I saw Nolan's "Batman begins" I thought it was poorly directed - Not because Nolan is a bad director, but because this style of directing does not fit a comic. You can't take a movie about a guy in a bat suit too seriously and dismiss all comic aspects. Tim Berton knew this, directed accordingly (although this is also his usual style) and the result was a good movie. Nolan ignored this fact. The result was a movie that was not realistic at all, and yet tried to seem serious - an unintentional parody. The "eastern wisdom and training" montage clichés didn't help either.
With "The Dark Knight", Nolan keeps making the same mistake, only this time its much worse. If the film is supposed to be realistic, you can't have so many unrealistic assumptions. One example: How is it the the Joker can get anywhere and do anything he want? He plants powerful radio activated bombs everywhere (it takes a whole company just to design these), He infiltrates the world's most powerful crime organizations etc. He keeps talking about how people start behaving like animals once you start disrupting their ordered world. But a plan of the Joker's magnitude would in real life require a huge, organized and coordinated group. Actually, in order to create "anarchy" in real life, you would have to organize and create a new form of order, so the Joker's point is moot.
And that is just one of many contradictions I feel this movie has. That's OK for a movie that doesn't seem to take itself too seriously (like Berton's), but not for this one that seemingly aspires to be 'realistic' and to be taken seriously.
The reason to give 2 stars instead of one: Superb acting by Heath Ledger.