
The movie is good, mind you. Don't get me wrong here. I thought the story was mostly great, the characters believable and the audio and camerawork phenomenal. So why am I so serious?
For starters, the movie was too long. It tried to develop many characters: Bruce Wayne, Rachel Dawson, Harvey Dent, The Joker, Lucius Fox, Gordon, and a mob lord. All in two and a half hours. Even the television show Lost, with it's insanely ridiculously large cast, focuses on about half those characters for a season. To try to give these characters a self-contained, fulfilling arc takes a long time. And while the movie handled it well, keeping the focus smaller and neater

In relation to the paragraph above, the movie kind of pulled a Spider-Man 3. It tried to give us too many bad guys to feel scared about. When the movie started, we saw how devious and tricky the Joker could be. But then we were introduced to another section of the mob. (They were boring in Batman Begins and are still boring here.) Then we meet another villain, this guy being as big and menacing as the Joker himself. And that was kind of the problem. It took the spotlight off the real big villain and turned it onto this "newcomer," if only because of symbolism. The film took us many places, with many people. And with one or two less places and people, the film could have been excellent. It could have still been very emotionally satisfying, for both the characters and the audience.
Another complaint I have with the film is not the film's fault, but the hype surrounding the film. The film was not a non-stop roller coaster of intensity. There were many stops. You had time to walk around and get a soda between rides. There was also much talk about the late Heath Ledger's performance of the Joker as being "Oscar-worthy." While he personified a great character, and certainly took what he had and turned it into something very special, I don't know that I would find it to be an outstanding achievement in acting. Shoot, I feel like the city of Chicago added as much character and atmosphere to the movie as Ledger, if not more so. (The city was filmed beautifully.)

I would probably give this movie an 8 out of 10. It's still good, and I'm glad I saw it. But it is not the type of movie I would necessarily see again, nor buy the DVD for.
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