A Long, Dark, Dreary Knight

So it all started a few years ago when I went to see Batman Begins at the cinema. I went in expecting a fairly decent movie, and I came out having witnessed a masterpiece. To this day it stands as one of my personal favourite films, and naturally I was excited but nervous when I heard that a sequel was on the way. Sequels, as I'm sure you've noticed, have this weird habit of being terribly disappointing, with a few exceptions. My nervous thoughts were cast aside, however, when I heard from a few, very reliable friends across the pond that it surpasses even the brilliance of its predecessor. Even Yahtzee praised it as being, and I quote, "absolutely fucking legendary".

If I have ever felt like the subject of some massive, Truman Show-esque social experiment, it was in the few seconds after having finished watching that film. I literally had not read a single review of it, official or not, that didn't shower it with praise, and yet not for one moment while I sat in front of that screen did I once think "this is a good film". I went to see it with two other people, and the average opinion upon leaving the cinema was "below average".

This is where you'd probably expect me to do some explaining for myself, since I seem to be the only blogger who isn't currently kissing that film's arse until it's red raw, but to be honest, I have nothing to say. That's exactly why I didn't enjoy it. There was nothing to particularly like about it at all, with the possible exception of the late Heath Ledger's impressive performance as The Joker. It seems somewhat of a mistake that they took the only remarkable thing about the film and did a completely half-arsed job of it, then. I'm pretty sure that at the time of his death, Heath had already finished doing all of his scenes for the film, so there's no excuse for the fact that Joker fades into the background around half-way through, and becomes a secondary character to none other than Burnt Face Man.

Upon retrospect, The Dark Knight is not a single film, but rather the beginning of one film, and the ending of another, connected tenuously by a run-of-the-mill-American-action-movie middle section in which each minor character is kidnapped or killed at least six times.

If I could somehow construct a time-machine and deliver a message to the film's director before the filming began, I would tell him to leave Two-Face out of it whatsoever, because, much like said villain, the film tries to be two things at the same time and ultimately ends up as a wet, half-baked mess on the floor. So, my time-travelling message to the past would be this: keep it simple, because sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. I suppose while I'm there I ought to give Mr. Ledger the same advice.