The Dark Knight

Initial consensus: pretty disappointing. The movie must have had a huge budget, what with multiple explosions, car chases, about six fights, and of course its high-profile cast. It was well-made and all, as one would expect. The acting was good enough: Ledger definitely developed a pretty fearsome character in the Joker. But for all that, the movie was too long, somewhat disjointed, oppressively dark, anticlimactic, and actually rather short on the character who gave the film its name, the dark knight himself. Continuity with the last film is rather tenuous: while Batman Begins may have had its dark moments, this seemed more like a horror-thriller, focusing with wearisome intensity on the truly depraved character of The Joker. The film was like a morass of evil, and a lot of it was improbable: the Joker basically unravels the entire legal and law enforcement structure of a city at least the size of Chicago, and he manages to do so with almost perfect immunity because everything goes right for him.

Maybe it's a fair comparison to say that Batman Begins, though no lighthearted film, had a sense of balance. It was cool. It brought gravity to the character of Batman. The Dark Knight brought a kind of unpleasant gruesomness to the story and seemed more like a biopic on a psychopath than an action film. The moral message at the end was also unconvincing, probably rather unlikely, and failed to illuminate the almost unmitigated darkness of the film.

Maggie Gyllenhal seemed like even more of a throwaway character than in the first movie, a less convincing actress than Katie Holmes, who actually did an ok job with Rachel Dawes in Begins. Another character also makes a hugely implausible shift of demeanor, morality, and allegiance which was dealt with in an abrupt, almost off-hand way, made very little sense, and yet seemed to be taken with an enormous amount of seriousness by the filmmakers.

Was Ledger's performance Oscar-worthy? Maybe. But by and large I don't think I'd like to see a prestigious award given to this film which, when you really weigh it through all the explosions and dark camera shots, doesn't have much to offer other than the stark tale of a psychopath who raises the stakes so improbably high that it seems impossible anyone could make a third story in the same vein. I wish I could say it had some redeeming elements, but there aren't really very many. One or two scenes had some humor that rang true, but they are few and far between in this 2.5 hour endurance run which seemed to totter a little on the edge of its PG-13 rating.

Recommended? Nope, not really. I'll stick to Batman Begins and hope he ends here, or cleans up his act a little. If this is where Christopher Nolan wants to take the franchise, I'm not sure I want to follow along. In fact, let's just say it: the more I think about this movie, the less I like it. Can I have my seven bucks back now? Or 3 hours of my time, for that matter?