The Dark Knight Reviews
Top CriticChristopher Nolan's latest exploration of the Batman mythology steeps its muddled plot in so much murk that the Joker's maniacal nihilism comes to seem like a recurrent grace note.
CinePassion
Middling as a summer blockbuster, zero as art, and more than a bit alarming as a phenomenon
Reel.com
The movie is two-and-a-half hours of almost non-stop action, which while often enthralling, eventually gets tiring. It's just go-go-go.
| Original Score: 2.5/4
About.com
Plodding, puffed-up kitsch mistaking itself for profound psycho noir that the source material won't support.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/5
San Diego Metropolitan
Lacks is a sense of humor and a notion about the essential silliness of this premise.
Internet Reviews
Mixed with the flashes of absolute brilliance are long dead sections. The film left me more often bored than entertained. It's a certain candidate for my list of this year's most overrated movies.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
This movie is grim and jammed together. The narrative isn't shaped coherently to bring out contrasts and build toward a satisfying climax. The Dark Knight is constant climax; it's always in a frenzy, and it goes on forever.
The Dark Knight is noisy, jumbled, and sadistic.
Star Magazine
This movie is too in love with itself to make you love it.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Visually impressive, but any hack can do a halfway decent job with trailer-ready tangents. Not everyone can push the genre forward, and the fact that Nolan's padded popcorn flick isn't the streamlined masterpiece it could have been is a real buzzkill.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
New York Press
The generation of consumers who swallow this pessimistic sentiment can't see past the product to its debased morality. Instead, their excitement about The Dark Knight's dread (that teenage thrall with subversion) inspires their fealty to product.
Austin Chronicle
It's jam-packed with flawlessly designed set-pieces and skullduggery, sure, but it's also shrouded in grim portent, overlaid with a filigree of despair, and, for good measure, covered in a patina of dire consequence.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
[Ledger gives] a fine performance regardless, and I wish the movie around it were more deserving.
Baltimore Sun
It's the standard-bearer for the school of comic-book movies that confuses pompousness with seriousness and popular mechanics for drama.
Full Review
| Original Score: C
Daily Mail [UK]
The plot is often impossible to follow. And the film, though dark, isn't as deep as some have claimed.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Hollywood Report Card
Powerful acting, powerful action, huge IMAX sequences give this Batman a great big commanding feel. However, story is held hostage to action, especially in the second half.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Examiner.com
It is ridiculous how much praise "The Dark Knight" truly deserves. Heath Ledger is this film's crowning jewel. By the time you get to the end credits, you'll immediately want to see it again.
Full Review
| Original Score: 10/10
2UE That Movie Show
The glimpse into the Joker's darkness during his documented torture scene is a credit to the devastatingly lost potential of Heath Ledger.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
