Epic Suck

Rating: 1/10 (19 January 2010)

I don't know if this is the most overrated film ever, but it's the worst one I've seen in a long, long time. Almost as long as this steaming waste of three hours of my life. Let's review:
* Suspension of disbelief is part and parcel of the superhero world, but c'mon. You're telling me this psychopath has recruited dozens of henchman, purchased mountains of equipment and rigged several hundred barrels of explosives in locations all over the city, and the world's greatest detective can't find a SINGLE BLEEDING CLUE without some Mr. Wizard cell phone stunt? Yeah, sure, half the cops are on the take, but are all of them blind, in this post-9/11 world? The Joker's band is comprised of escapees from an asylum, but they're all lean, mean, disciplined and competent?
* This may be the widest ratio of screen time:plotfree of the decade. Too many characters. Too many side scenes. Too many random encounters. Too much exposition that doesn't actually expose anything. What do we leave this movie knowing? Anything?
* The sheer quality was poor. Much of the film was too dark to see, and the sound was terribly spotty, yoyoing between blaringly loud and inaudible.
* Yeah, Ledger did a good job, so stipulated. He still wouldn't have cadged an Oscar for it without the posthumous sympathy vote.
* Finally ... this just blew a hole through the genre. Aren't the good guys supposed to WIN? They spend the movie losing ... dozens of people getting murdered, hundreds wounded and terrorized, chaos, mayhem, death and destruction and violence, and they pretty much lose at the end too. There's very little hopeful or uplifting here.
2/10, barely.