Nolan seems intent on purposely making a grand epic kind of film. Trouble is, in doing so, the film comes off as pretentious without ever actually taking the audience captive. With the exception of Ledger and maybe Michael Caine, it simply lacks a pulse, it lacks a heart. There's no personal attachment for the viewer to the protagonist, or to Dent, or to Rachel. You should want to pull for the good guy to beat this psycho, you should feel crushed when Harvey crumbles, you should feel for Bruce immensely when Rachel gets offed. Instead, these characters have no heart. As a result, the viewer is fed just enough to remain patient until the Joker comes back.

Harvey Dent is supposed to be the people's champ, except you never see him at any sort of rally, or really getting his hands dirty. Nolan just kind of says, "ok, here's the good guy DA, you're supposed to root for him."

For one, Rachel was miscast. Katie Holmes was perfect, light and airy and never seeming out of pocket. Gylenhaal is too good for this bubblegum part. On top of it, does it ever really seem that she's enamored with Eckhart OR Bale? No, instead you're just supposed to buy into it.

and eventually people will come to realize that the Batman character means nothing to the movie, and neither does Bruce Wayne. When Rachel dies he sulks for a second but he never sheds a tear or really considers tapping out to the point that the viewer's emotions are rattled. again, he says he's considering retiring, but there's never a point where he is confronted with the choice to the point that it really seems feasible. it's a flat character that never seems to go up or down.

and that's just with those main characters.

real talk:

- as visually appealing as it was you could have clipped the trip to asia. completely.

- the two-face character should have been left with the question mark of whether he was dead or alive after Joker blew up the hospital. instead the movie shifts to making him an integral part of the movie without any really substantial buildup to the character. oh they called you two face back in the day? ah, alright then that makes sense that you only have skin on half your head. nah fam.

- the fighting in Batman Begins was violent and fast and choreographed
at a breakneck speed. it felt like you were a fly on the wall watching Bats beat the piss out of these guys, like the idea was that he was so advanced of a fighter compared to these low level criminals that they stood no chance of keeping up, and in turn neither did you. now he has trouble with every kind of criminal and the pace is slowed down and clunky. and the dogs?

But Favreau and the writers got it right man. In simply trying to make an entertaining film, he made something great and special. The little things add up to making that movie so strong. The relationship with the guy in the cave helps explain why Tony is so adamant about dropping the weapons division and saving the world when he gets home. The stuff with Terrence Howard is fantastic, not even because of Howard or Downey, but because of the relationship between the characters. Rhodes has to babysit him at the casino and wait for him at the charter plan, so by the time he comes to rescue him out of the desert there really is an unusual sigh of relief that overcomes that audience. and the stuff with Pepper Potts is even better, she gets her own scene with the taking out the trash bit and when she asks Tony what his social security number is. That stuff shows that she's a real person who is bright AND opinionated, so when Tony comes home from the middle east with the bullet holes and she's frightened, the idea of Iron Man playing world policeman really does seem dangerous. simply put, the movie has heart man, a lot of it and it takes it a long way. even without the iron man suit and the fights it's engaging.

I had a great professor who loved to say "if you have to EXPLAIN your point then you didn't make your point well enough" well I guess that applies to Nolan's Dark Knight. It's a tough of explaining, explaining the role Harvey plays in Gotham, explaining the love triangle, while putting none of it on display. It's a four star movie, but when its stood up to Iron Man, a surprising five out of five, its flaws really stand out.