The Dark Knight

OK, it's had the biggest opening weekend in history, its getting rave reviews left and right, virtually every person that I've seen or heard comment on it has loved it... and all I can say is "10,000 lemmings can't be wrong!"

Spoilers ahoy! If you haven't seen it yet, you read this at your own risk.

I didn't like The Dark Knight. I didn't hate it, I didn't think it was a bad movie, but I didn't like it. Batman Begins had a certain light-hearted feel to it. "It's a black... tank..." Is the dominant line for me of that movie. Not-quite-believable action is OK because its part of the humor that runs throughout the movie. Yes, there was drama, but it seemed to me to take a back seat to the action and the humor alike. How does Batman appear and disappear? Because he's a Ninja! Ninja can do that! Its kitsch, and that makes it a little funy if you think about it.

In The Dark Knight, drama has jumped from third place or lower to first, and the comedy doesn't quite ring right. The moment that defines this movie for me is the Joker walking out of the hospital as explosions go off, and hitting his detonator repeatedly to make the big one go. It seems like it was meant to be funny, and it might have been, but not coming right after the scene with Dent in the hospital and shortly after the death of Rachel. The humor of this movie is twisted - much like the Joker himself. Drama, disturbing concepts (courtesy of the Joker), action, and humor trailing along like a lost puppy wondering where its owner went. Now, I'm a medic at heart even if I'm not licensed in this state. I do dark humor. Death, disfiguration, and violence can be involved in things without necessarily making them not funny. But here it didn't work for me.

I also felt The Dark Knight was a little too long, with one plot twist too many. By about 3/4 of the way through the movie I was thinking "where did the Joker find all these guys/ how did he get all this information/how did he plan that in advance?" every few minutes. Then "Two Face" comes in and makes that look easy. Dent has no Ninja training - how does he manage to find all those people so fast? How does he get out of the hospital? How does he survive the car crash?

To finish on a positive note, I can say nothing bad about the acting. Everyone from the leads to the one-line characters did a great job. The special effects may not always be believeable, but they're quite impressive. All in all while this movie may not deserve to be the super-blockbuster it has turned out to be, there are many, many movies that deserve it less.