about pretty much everything you say. But what do you expect? It’s a COMIC BOOK MOVIE. The best comic book movie (possibly this one) is NEVER going to be great art, just great entertainment. How to enjoy a movie like this: Focus on the good shit, ignore the stupid stuff. If you’re enjoying more than you’re ignoring, then it’s good for what it is.

My two cents: the Joker was great, possibly turning this movie from not good to good. Ledger was excellent. I loved the pencil-disappearing trick, and the part when he emerges from the exploding hospital in a nurse outfit. I plan to see it again soon. There was also a good deal of stupid shit.

I mean god. It was especially bad whenever he spoke more than one line in a row (which, thankfully, wasn’t all that often). I also thought the part at the end where he was beating down SWAT people until he was caught and then in like 2 seconds worked everything out and they were back to shooting doctors rather than clowns was stupid. Overall it was a damn fine movie though.

Couch the following praise / criticism based on that.

I’m a kid of the 80s. I starting following some of the major storylines in the comics probably in late 80s, right before the first Batman movie. There are some really well-written story arcs (Death in the Family, No Man’s Land, Hush, Long Halloween, Dark Victory) in the Batman universe. I did not follow the Adam West series, yet I have seen some of the episodes. The toughest part about critiquing any particular portrayal of Batman, is that over time people have had different interpretations of Batman. The original TV series went for campy/slapstick Batman. Tim Burton tried to combine dark and camp. And whoever the f did Batman Forever and whatever part 4 was called, well that was nearly the deathnell for the franchise. And yet here we are with a relaunched franchise and a “retelling” of the Batman mythology based of a different era of Batman (Batman Year 1 / Dark Knight) So that’s my background / experience …

IMO, Batman is meant to be a brooding loner character with a healthy level of self doubt about how effective he really is, but the determination to see his crusade through.
-Christopher Nolan nails this interpretation better than anyone prior.

IMO, Joker is a highly intelligent sociopath who really enjoys f’ing with people just for the sake of his own twisted amusement. Anyone that read Death in the Family remembers Joker’s offing of Robin #2 as an epic, controversial, and brutal moment in comic book history. Bloody beatdown with a crowbar?! Yeah, that was twisted Joker. That portrayal of Joker likes to push the ‘good guys’ to the limit to see if they’ll cross their own moral line of killing him in cold-blood / revenge. There’s also an portrayal of Joker as a killer via pranks, leaving a smile on his victim’s faces. That was more reflected in Jack Nicholson’s Joker. That was the ‘nice on the outside, child-molesting uncle’ kind of Joker. Ledger’s Joker was more along the lines of a Hannibal Lector kind of Joker. Unpredictable. Murderous. Dark. Twisted. His gags/pranks aren’t meant to be mirthful. They’re meant to trigger the ‘holy sht, that’s f’ed up’ kind of reaction, a nervous laughter.
-As such, Nolan’s interpretation was dead on.

Harvey Dent / Two-Face – can you believe this is the third different actor to portray Harvey Dent in a movie? Anyways, a key part of this movie is the ‘tragedy’ of Harvey Dent. Like Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels, if you know what Harvey Dent will become, much of the intrigue is in how he gets there, what finally makes him ‘snap’. Here’s a guy that believes in the side of good for the most part, until good fails him. It’s not a huge stretch to believe that a person can go from fighting the good fight to ‘why should I give a sht’ due to personal tragedy. The point shown is that Harvey Dent wasn’t strong enough to overcome that. He holds Comm. Gordon’s family hostage because he sees him as being responsible as their boss. Jim (Gordon) had acknowledged that he had some bad cops on the force, but wasn’t in the position to root them out all at once. Dent called him out on that. So in Harvey’s mind – #1 Corrupt cops turned Rachel over to Maroni / Joker’s men, #2 The cops did not get there in time to save Rachel. Is it not believable to think that Harvey would pin that on Jim?

The ‘moral complexity’ is meant to show that not everything is cleancut and straightforward as most non-Spiderman comic movies depict. It’s meant to pose the question to you – what would you do if you were Dent? You’ve been fighting bad guys all your career. The people who are supposed to be good (cops) can’t be trusted. The cops and villians off your fiance, and not only that, do it in a way where it’s either you or her … and you have no say in the choice. Many people would rather be dead than live without their loved one. Dent doesn’t get that. Instead, he’s scarred. Seemingly, the bad guys win. Like the Joker says ‘It’s like gravity, all it takes is a push …’ It’s quite believable to believe that he just loses it. And becomes Two-Face. He cared about the world once, and he feels like he got f’ed over, so he says screw it, why should I stay on the side of good?

Here are some more direct responses to your critiques.

“-Generally speaking, this movie had a bunch of the same (tiresome by this point) themes that every damn superhero movie has, but since it was darker, people feel the need to take it more seriously. E.g., Batman questioning whether he should give up being a superhero. Maybe he’s doing more harm than good! This happens in every superhero franchise. I didn’t find it particularly compelling the first time I encountered it, and it’s not any more interesting in this movie. I kept expecting Morgan Freeman to say “with great power comes great responsibility”….”
Actually, the only other comic franchise that has gotten the dilemma right is Spiderman.
What franchises/movies don’t do it right, if at all?
Superman (original series)
X-Men
Fantastic Four
Daredevil
Hulk(s)
Ironman

That said, of the above, only the X-Men really have that dilemma (protecting a world that hates and fears them).

As for the boat scene – it’s a very classical philosophical dilemma of determining what’s best for the greater good. A group of Jews are hiding from the Nazi’s. Among them is a crying baby. Should they kill the baby to prevent themselves from getting found (and killed)? If yes, and you were in that group, would you kill the baby yourself? A group of railroad workers are working on the railroad unseen by an oncoming train a couple miles way. You know they’re there. If you push a man onto the track where you are, you’ll kill that man, but the resulting braking of the train will stop it in time to save the lives of the workers. Would you make that push? Would it make a difference if he was the Dalai Lama or if he was a serial wife-beating child molester? Now apply to the boat situation. That’s the moral complexity. Maybe it’s not complex enough for you. But it’s a helluva lot more complex than nearly all comic book movies, and most drama movies for that matter. Not since the first Saw have I found myself wondering what I would do when faced with a lose-lose situation.

As for Batman going into hiding -
Batman doesn’t have to be liked. He’s a vigilante. He operates outside the law. Now, it may be easy to glorify something like that, but when you actively condone or encourage it, you’re taking the first step towards a society of lawlessness. (‘Oh, so if you beat up bad guys by yourself, that’s ok? Well forget due process and justice, I’ll mete out punishment as I see fit. Which then begs the question of who determines who’s a bad guy?) Whereas Dent was supposed to represent what the law should be. Doing things the ‘right way’ to defeat the bad guys. A man with no secret identity to hide. With Batman, there are no checks and balances. Who’s gonna stop him if he goes bad? Whereas, if Dent goes too far, he can be booted from office. There’re procedures in place in a public government.

The intended reaction was that it’s a screwed up world in which Batman has to go into hiding? Why does he? Because cops got killed. People needed someone to blame it on. Harvey wasn’t a good culprit, because the public remembers him as the ultimate “White Knight” And if the purest good guy can be turned, what hope is there for the rest of the city? So it’s easy to pin the deaths on Batman. He can not care what the public thinks of him. He doesn’t need their approval to do what he does. He doesn’t need to be the shining good guy. Leave that to boy scouts like Superman.

Finally, it’s all relative. If you were expecting a light popcorn comic book movie, then yes, this movie failed to deliver. If you wanted something with the depth/intensity of a Usual Suspects / Goodfellas / Heat, this failed in that too.

If you wanted a comic book movie that was gritty and spurred ‘what would I do?’ questions without the typical comic book fluff, silliness, and extravagance, this was the movie for you. It was a crime drama with comic book characters, not a traditional comic book movie. I daresay this was on par with The Departed (probably because I downgrade that for screwing with The Infernal Affairs formula). It was intended to provoke thoughts mimicing real world scenarios in which sometimes, both choices are bad and you still have to pick on of them. Would I s