Things:

  1. Seriously, PG-13? I mean, okay, it wasn’t Watchmen, but dude, that’s more than a PG-13 movie.

  2. It was about 80% less angsty than I thought it would be. I expected it to be Batman brooding around all movie, but they avoided this nearly entirely, which is good.

  3. Less good is that they avoided it via the expedient of simply not having any Batman-related characterization at all. Good ol’ stoneface didn’t have a single emotion in the entire film. Bale’s a good actor, but that was just a waste.

  4. So people were all like, “Oh, Heath Ledger’s Joker is more subtle and less scenery-chewing than Jack Nicholson’s!” Except, well, no. All he did was chew scenery, he just did it in a different way. It was a perfectly fine portrayal of a boring villain, but not revelatory or anything.

  5. Which is pretty much a summary of the movie. Basically okay, but pretty much a disposable superhero movie without any wit or originality at all. Iron Man was a zillion times better than this was. Hell, for that matter, Jeff Bridges was better as Stane than Ledger was as the Joker – Evil The Dude is a much more novel villain than Crazy Guy #43.