The Dark Knight (2008)

"The only justice in an unfair world is chance," philosophizes Harvey "Two-Face" Dent toward the end of the often brilliant but ass-numbingly long THE DARK KNIGHT.
It's a great line made even better by what followed (something about an unjust world...can't remember), but for me, THE DARK KNIGHT started to lose a little luster toward the end as this message started to be shoved down our throats like The Joker's knives to the corners of his victims' mouths.
ALRIGHT! WE GET IT!
We don't get that this wonderful, just D.A. could change so dramatically just because of "RACHEEEEEEEEELLLLL!!!," but we get the point. And therein lies what is probably my biggest beef with a movie that I otherwise LOVED. So I'll skip the obvious (such as Heath Ledger's performance, because everythinging good you've heard about it is completely true and not overblown), and tell you my three main grievances:
1. The Dent story arc starts to drive the train off the track. It needs to be there because it clarifies some of the Joker's actions in corrupting the uncorruptable, which is amplified when he tries to provoke Batman to kill him. But as I mentioned earlier, the theme gets hammered home too ridiculously. We are smart viewers...we got it already!
2. Sweet Home, Chi-gotham. Sorry...all I saw was Chicago. Couldn't shake it. It was Windy City Batman. Don't get me wrong...I LOVE that they shot it here and I'm headed to Lower Wacker tonight to relive the memories. But I think us Chicagoans are at a disadvantage on this one. Bummer.
3. TOO LONG. I thought when you loved something you could never get enough. My rear end objects. This film was 20 minutes too long. When you make a 2 1/2 hour long comic book film, you are becoming self-important. Dark is fine, self-important is not.
These are ultimately minor quibbles, but I vent them here because everyone else is treating this film like the second coming of D.W. Griffith. And it is AWESOME. But it's not perfect.

3.5 out of 4