The joker stole the show

Yeap, you masturbate to ledger joker, don't you? scumbag

Batman was okay by me. I think Christian held his own just fine against Ledger, given how much more interesting the Joker is.

Pretty much all of the things that are wrong with Bale's Batman are not his fault. Namely the voice and the fights choreography/camera work. Not only did Nolan think that growly voice was a good idea, but he also enhanced it with post effects, just wow.

As you said it yourself, Batman is naturally dull, and the Joker is a much more interesting character. Now couple that with the fact that The Joker is pretty much the main character and is the one who keeps moving the plot forward. Ledger had minimal external interference on his portrayal, unlike Bale, who kind of got screwed over by Nolan.

Yeah, I agree. I found Bale most interesting when he was Bruce Wayne TBH.

I just re-watched this last night for the first time in a decade. Bale's voice and contorted mouth were pretty distracting.

Whenever Ledger was in the scene, all eyes were on him...

The antagonist is very often more interesting than the protagonist. As I’ve said many times before, without a great antagonist, you have nothing. Think of cowboy movies, the bad guy is dressed all in black and has a massive sex-appeal advantage over the squeaky-clean white-wearing good guy. In Milton’s poem, Paradise Lost, Satan is more interesting than The Lord God. Of course, we are talking about works of fiction, not reality. In reality, the Joker would be a creature everyone wants dead, because he is an evil genius who enjoys killing just to cause pain, of whom Alfred says, “Some men just want to see the world burn.” I know some will scorn what I am about to say next, and I do not care. In reality, who do you want to have your soul, The Lord, or Satan? Pathology, evil, darkness are essential fictional narrative components. We can indulge ourselves in them because they are fiction. In real life, the mundane, good and safe matter more than the exotic, evil and destructive. I think Ledger took full advantage of the Joker role, with inspiration channeled comic actor legend Jack Lemmon and gave the performance of a lifetime; but you would not want to meet him on the street.

To be fair, you really probably would not want to meet Batman or an angel on the street, either.

I’m sorry but there are so many other great things about this film that aren’t the joker

Yeah, but I've always found Batman's rogue's gallery to be more interesting than Batman full stop.

However, I will say that Keaton did a lot better playing against powerhouses like Michelle Pfeiffer, Danny de Vito and Christopher Walken than Bale did against just Heath Ledger, whoever might've been responsible for that.