In the old days, film-makers told stories. Now they create effects. That tells you pretty much all you need to know about "The Dark Knight." If you like car chases with flashy digitization and sonic booms, you'll love "The Dark Knight." Otherwise, stay home and read a book.

Admittedly "The Dark Knight" looks spectacular on an Imax screen, and Heath Ledger has to be a hands down winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. There are also plenty of familiar faces passing through the production -- Michael Caine, once a leading man, doing his by now standard Gielgud imitation as a butler, Morgan Freeman doing his by now standard role as God/CEO/Chief Technology Officer, Maggie Gyllenhall as the prim sexless object of everyone's affections, Christian Bale as the trust fund guy himself, Aaron Eckhart as an untouchable prosecutor. They meander and lurch through a plot so turgid that it isn't even worth diagramming as they face assorted actual and threatened explosions, free falls, assaults with deadly weapons, shattered windows, fires, and the aforementioned vehicle chases. For 152 minutes or so until finally, at long last, the closing credits come up, and everyone can go home.

There's no magic, no mystery, no glamor, no insight, no humanity in this movie. It's all "BANG," "POW," ZAP," "CRASH," "BOOM." And it's all pointless.