Very disappointing -- what a pity

Rating: 2/10 (19 July 2008)

I'm downrating this movie strongly in response to the unbelievable amount of positive hype it's gotten (objectively I'd rate it a 4). I'm usually easy to please with movies; I loved Batman Returns. But "Dark Knight" was badly screwed up, IMO. What a pity.
Pros: the acting was excellent (Ledger gives an all-out performance), and the visuals were great.
Cons: some people have described this as a horror movie. But it's a horror movie without a good plot, without heroes, and without any emotionally satisfying defeat of the horror.
Plot's a mess. Script was written by the director and his brother. It feels like the two pontificated and out-clevered themselves into writing a script that 1) tries to crams in *way* too much material and 2) feels awkward, meandering, preachy, and more interested in ideas than in characters or stories.
No coherent storyarc; pacing is wrong. About halfway through the movie, there's a big death scene that in any other movie would have been part of the movie climax. But here, it's just another in an ongoing string of disasters. You have no idea where the movie's going after that; it devolves into one threat/action scene after another.
Movie goes on far too long (people were muttering thru the last half, in my theater) and then just -- stops. No sense of triumph or closure; just another limp failure. One guy behind me said, "Well, whatever. I need a beer."
Characterization was screwed. Multiple characters did things that made no sense logically in the story, or for their established personality. Because dialogue depends on decent characterization  much of the dialogue sucked. The romance elements? Yawn. Interpersonal relationship and conversational insights into characters? Double yawn.
The heroes are shown as failures -- flustered, outmaneuvered, emotionally and morally bankrupt. Yeah, I want moral complexity in a superhero movie  but it also helps if the heroes are sometimes allowed to be, you know, heroes.
Overall recommendation: worth seeing for the acting and visuals, but plot and characterization stink.