Sorry for the bump, but this I think is just one of those cases where really another point of view is needed, as there's just so much of hype in this thread.
In my opinion, this movie sucked pretty bad. There were mostly two big issues:
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1. The action scenes were rather boring. There was nothing original or exciting about them. I don't know what else to say. Just to compare with Wanted for example, the action was simply inferior to todays standards.
2. The plot was really stupid and boring. Okay, there's the Joker. In the first half hour we have established that he's omnipotent if he isn't fighting Batman. Everything he does will succeed perfectly. Takes 30 minutes for this to sink in. (15 for those who have seen action movies before.) Then we always learn beforehand what he's going to do. Then he does exactly that, in a rather uninteresting and unimaginative way. And since we know that everything he does will inevitably succeed, and he keeps on telling us what he's going to do, what am I supposed to get excited about?
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Minor points:
3. Scary? At what point? This is a family film frankly. Nobody REALLY dies. Oh sure, lot's of people get blown up or poisoned, but we never really see it, and apart for the massively predictable "the girls gonna get it", no-one who dies is what you'd call a real person. Except of course for Gordon, but hey, he doesn't REALLY die. (That would've been the one interesting thing in the movie.)
4. The confused moralism of Joker. The Joker states he's an agent of chaos, and goes on to specify how he likes to blow up all the plans everyone else is making. Yet actually, he's pretty much the only guy in the whole movie who HAS a plan (and he ALWAYS has a plan, which mostly consists of blowing something), and also really the only guy who freaks out when his plan doesn't work. The Joker tries to make this point of "people are all really just animals when pushed to extremes", but he never really succeeds in pushing anyone. "Deciding which of two persons lives after I put you in a situation where you can only save one is the same as murder"
That's not whacko scary, that's just plain dumb.
5. Grim? This is grim? Batman wants out because he knows that vigilantism isn't the answer in the long run. Batman heroically takes the blame. People aren't really ready to kill each other, even when it could mean their own lives. (The ferry scene.) The "bad cop" has a sick mother. So on, so forth, oh dear. Milk and cookies are served at halftime.
6. Oh lord, the scene with the ferry's simply couldn't have sucked more. The balding middle-aged white guy representing the "normal people", the big intimidating black guy representing the criminals (just a _touch_ of racism there)... I mean c'mon, if you didn't see how that was going to play out from the first moment, you propably don't watch many Hollywood films. Every actor in that scene sucked, the writing sucked, it was filmed so bad it looked like a 70's studio disaster movie...
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Good stuff:
Heath Ledger was good.
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Unfortunately, there was about one really well written and directed scene in the movie, which was the magic trick scene. And even in that scene, the mobsters were such a bunch of caricatures I wouldn't have thought of seeing them in a top-budget movie these days, and really, haven't we seen the "main bad guy meets the backdrop baddies, makes an outrageous suggestion, kills someone (which is instantly ignored) and thus gains their attention/respect" about a million times already? Just the last film I watched (Showdown in Little Tokyo) had the same scene. So does Kill Bill (although it isn't the main bad guy of the whole movie who does it there.) I could name a dozen movies with that exact same scene. I'm tired of it. It was stupid the first time, it's stupid still.
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But yeah, Ledger was good, all things considered. Maggie Gyllenthaal was good, given how little she had to work with. I never get bored of watching Michael Caine. Nestor Carbonell's mayor was pretty good, even though the mascara was a bit much. The magic trick was funny, so was the scene with the extortion suggestion. Turning the bike against the wall was kind of funny and cool. Joker-the-Nurse washing his hands was kind of funny in a disturbing way.
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And that was about it. Two stars out of five. As someone said, not even the best superhero movie of this year. (Ironman was much superior.)