While no doubt a big budget, box office hit, the hype surrounding this movie is what I feel the '9.1' score is based off, rather than quality film making, scripting and acting. Let me explain...

Christian Bale delivers a solid batman performance once again, but his raspy 'batman' voice gets laughable at times and one cant help but to think he may have blew an o-ring trying to add some nuts to the voice. Supporting cast (freeman, etc) is all around decent, but definitely loses points in my book for dropping the lead actress from the first film. Perhaps Kate Holmes was going through Scientology boot camp.

Gary Oldman was the real treat here, watching him act is always a pleasure and I'm very excited that he landed the role of Gordon (and kept it). Definitely one of the best actors of our time. And finally, the Joker. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Ledger did a fair job at playing the Joker, but his performance seemed based off Nicholson's joker a little too much for me. Talk of a Best Actor award for this role is for the birds, but will probably be awarded by default to the late Heath Ledger (RIP).

The film makers claimed to have finished filming by the time Mr. Ledger passed, but I couldn't help but feel that the ending was rushed and felt entirely incomplete, since we never really see what finally happens to the Joker, unless they have already shot footage for the 3rd installment...like how they closed things up with scarecrow in the beginning of this flick (which also felt too rushed). After Harvey Dent's transformation into two-face, his role in the batman universe was NOT done to justice. He had about a 20 minute screen time appearance that was pretty sparse in between other plot lines. I feel two-face is a big part of the Batman legacy and should have had more focus. In the end he felt like a character that was stuffed in quickly in a re-draft to add more sub plots... They should have not had him at all, or waited for the right time to bring him in full swing and for a longer stay.

All in all, it's a pretty solid eye candy kind of movie for the kids on a Friday night. There's not much thinking that needs to be done on the sidelines, however at a 152 minute runtime, the movie begins to wear out it's welcome at points and does catch some drag on the mushy plot spots... A mildly enjoyable follow up, but not better than Batman Begins.

5/10