Everyone knows you always save the lady not the guy! Except whoever wrote this script I guess. This movie is way overrated by movie goers. I don't know how to explain what is happening out there in movie land but movies that at best are good are getting these rave reviews. Dirty hairy would have shot the joker in about the first 5 minutes and saved us 2 or more hours of absurd violence. Let me see if I can sum this movie up, the bad guy is killing dozens of people, while the good guys including the so called Dark Knight are wondering around doing nothing until all hell breaks lose. The basic story line of this movie has been done before and better in the Crow. At the least the Crow knew what to do with bad guys, you kill them. This Batman was the wimpiest yet and got his ass kicked several times. I think Adam West from the 60's batman farce and whoever was Robin could have done a better and quicker job of mopping up this Joker. Heath Ledger got a little to preachy for my taste, just shut up and be bad. Oh and for those who read deeper meaings into this movie, like the Joker representing world wide terrorism and Batman using unethical methods to combat him(monitoring cell phones) give me a break. This is a comic book hero, no wonder I bought Marvel comics as opposed to DC 10 to one.