And Now For A Completely Unpopular Opinion.

Let's dive right in with both feet and alienate the majority of potential readers in one fell swoop.

The Dark Knight is not a good movie.

Yes, I said it. It's not. It's an okay movie... it's entertaining enough. It does not deserve to be #10 on the IMDB Top 250 Movies list. It does not deserve to beat Rear Window, Casablanca and Citizen Kane. I think I might have a shitfit if it were still listed higher than Schindler's List. Thank God that lapse in popular judgment was rectified.

Hell, this movie doesn't even deserve to beat Terminator 2: Judgement Day. It just doesn't. I mean, come on, people... it's just not that great!

I'll give you this, it wasn't terrible. It wasn't even bad. It was overhyped, for sure, but it had its strong points. And no, I'm not going to blame the hype on Heath Ledger's death; the man certainly deserved recognition for his part in this film and if anything I wish he had gotten more attention for his actual performance and not the fact that he had passed away. I'm not sure why exactly this film got so much hype but I think it was because Batman Begins was so good, and so fresh, when it was released. Personally I blame Bale for this big disappointment... he just doesn't pull off Batman for me. But Christopher Nolan has to take some of the blame too, along with his writing team... the biggest problem with this movie is that there is way, way, way too much climax, and not enough rising action. Most people translate that to, "It was intense", but seriously, it was just over the top runaway train.

(Warning: here thar be spoilers, arrr)

I didn't have high hopes for this movie, anyway. Based on the previews, it looked to me like they were changing the Joker's character too much away from his intended place in the hierarchy of the Rogue's Gallery, and I didn't care for that. Much like I didn't care for the "re-imagining" of Catwoman they did a few years back. It wasn't Heath Ledger that made me feel this way, it was just the way the previews lined up the information, I think.

But the writing for the character of the Joker actually did surprise me, and it was in fact one of the only things about this movie I truly applaud and enjoyed. But the rest of the film disappointed me in other ways. What rising action there was was tired and cliche. The Spiderman-esque love triangle got old pretty quickly and Joker's antics were (while well-acted) fairly predictable. I also have to scoff at the God-Like powers the writers granted to the Joker, who always seemed to be able to set up hideously complex bombs and death traps in public places, without anyone ever seeing him or ever actually being there, and with a consistently diminishing pool of loyal goons (since he kept killing them all himself). Plus, glaring stupidity on the part of the police force: I'm just not buying the scene where the Joker, holding a man both taller and heavier than him with only a small knife to his hostage's throat, faces down a room of about 15 cops, all with their guns drawn and pointed at him, and NO ONE shoots him. Don't get me wrong, I didn't want the Joker to just get taken out by some cop in a stand-off, but it JUST DIDN'T MAKE SENSE. One of my movie-watching companions said of this scene, "If I were one of those cops, I'd have just shot him and said he'd gotten free and had a weapon."

To this I could only reply, "Why even make the excuse? He did get free and he did have a weapon. Any reasonable cop with half a brain would have shot him right there!"

Plus, there was just too much going on all at once. I couldn't keep up with all the sudden reveals and the switches in scenes and the several small plotlines weaving in and out of the main chase. Factor in some Michael Bay-worthy action and special effects scenes that dragged out way longer than they needed to for the sole purpose of impressing the audience with shiny pyrotechnics, and I was just done. I was ready for the movie to be over about an hour before it was. Which wasn't surprising considering it was over at about 2:30, meaning I got home at about 3, meaning I got about 4 hours of sleep before crawling into work. Thank god my boss decided to treat us to coffee the next morning.

The movie was definitely not worth it.

On the bright side, the acting was phenomenal (with the exception of Bale). I'm sorry, Bale, but one does not become Batman by simply snarling through his lines in an unintelligible growl-yell combo. You fail. Otherwise, possibly the best (and most realistic) Two-Face I have ever seen, and Maggie Gyllenhall was a great choice to replace Katie Holmes. I actually believed she and Christian Bale had chemistry, which was something sorely lacking with Holmes. And plus, you know, Katie Holmes is a brainless droid.

Top-notch job by Ledger, he did his part sooo very well. But above and beyond anyone else was without a doubt Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordon). He was brilliant (but then again, isn't he always?). I didn't even like the movie that much and I'd see it again purely for him. He had both me and my brother in tears at some points. Bravo, Mr. Oldman. Bravo.

Though I obviously disagree with a vast majority of people when it comes to this film, I can give credit where credit is due. One line that will always make me smile:

Commissioner Gordon shouting directions at the driver of a police cruiser: "Mount the sidewalk!"

When Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon is telling me to mount anything, I'm there.