I finally saw this movie Friday night and I'm just going to be honest in saying I was underwhelmed. Actually, both me and my friend were. The only part of the film I found really interesting was the Joker, but he sure went out with a whimper in the end. God that was anti-climatic. And on the way to that plateau of a point I damn near fell asleep. I was trying so hard to stay awake and keep up with the muddled plot, but by the time the Joker had left the screen for good I just didn't care any more. Two-Face's character did not intrigue me at all. I was astounded by how little interest I had in the whole thing by the time it was over.
The only things that stand out in my mind from the movie are Ledger's insane Joker performance, and about two cool action sequences that did just enough to keep my eyelids from getting heavy before the talky plot took center stage again. And when I say talky I mean TALKY.
Heath Ledger gave the ONLY notable performance in this movie. Christian Bale was a total snooze and his raspy Batman voice irritated the hell out of me. After the movie my friend said she couldn't even make out some of the stuff Bale was saying because he sounded like he had laryngitis. I agreed.
Maggie Gyllenhaal was no better than Katie Holmes as Rachel and got so little meaningful screen time that I found myself not giving a damn about her character, even when something major happened with her. Aaron Eckhardt was bland and even when he became Two-Face I was far from convinced. I'd have been fine if they'd left his character out of the movie entirely, which I wasn't expecting. No one else in the movie is even worth mentioning as they just played their roles very predictably and faded into the background as needed.
When the end of the movie came I was checking my watch and just waiting for all the melodramatic dialogue to end once and for all. I was disappointed that Two-Face sort of went out with a whimper too, but then, all his character did was whimper for the most part.
If you're not a Batman fan I say see it for the Joker when it's released on DVD or something, but be aware that there's a lot of dry, talky plot to trudge through, and you'll have to do it all while a loud, erratic and sometimes downright annoying musical score blares in your ears.
I honestly believe people have just fed into the hype with this movie. It wasn't bad but it was far from the masterpiece it's being hailed as in my opinion. I guess people are just too starved for great films these days.
