What is going on with all of these maximum ratings for a barely average film? According to IMDb, this is the best film of the decade so far. Not one sane person could argue that this is justified. Have the studios finally managed to get the masses to 'believe the hype'? I was a bit skeptical about this film, due to the hype, and especially because I wasn't impressed with Batman Begins, but I must admit, the heist in the first five minutes was excellent, and I thought my skepticism was unwarranted. But then Batman turned up and began speaking like a wrestler with throat cancer, and it continued to go down hill from there. What I didn't expect this film to be was tedious. But it was. It was far too long and bored my pants off me. There was no character development, the story was convoluted and over-complex and it was far too long. But my my main problem, and this goes against nearly every reviewer here, even those who weren't impressed, I thought Heath Ledger was absolutely awful! Who are these people calling for a posthumous Oscar? There is nothing I despise more than a 'look at me' performance. Ledger did all the tricks required to portray a 'crazy guy', including shifting his eyes up, down, left and right at every opportunity, and ingeniously, due to having his mouth cut as a child, he keeps licking around the inside of his mouth, which rather than being an impressive feat of method acting is actually as irritating as watching a fat man eat chips with his mouth open. His performance was utterly self-indulgent and it seems like all you sycophants fell for it. The only decent acting performance in this film is Eckhart. Caine and Morgan bore, and Bale, with his 'employ me for movie trailers' voice barely has one dimension. I would have rated this film higher if it hadn't taken itself so seriously, but as it stands it is a pretentious hyped-up and tedious movie. At last, the dark truth.