• Batman is impotent in his own movie.

A good villain should be a step or two ahead of the hero throughout the movie. It keeps it exciting, and you want the hero to be challenged. But at some point there should be a scene where there hero turns it around and ends up getting ahead of the villain and outsmarting him once and for all in the endgame. This never really happens. The only “victory” Batman gets is when the two boats don’t blow up, which happens out of dumb luck. It could have easily gone the other way. Batman didn’t actually do accomplish the saving of those people, they just happened to end up okay, but no thanks to him. He spends the whole movie jumping through the Joker’s hoops, and even when he physically defeats him, it still seems like part of Joker’s plan. Then he sends Batman to chase after Harvey Dent, showing him that he corrupted someone thought to be uncorruptible. Chalk up another victory to the Joker, and another instance where Batman is two steps behind the Joker. But at least Batman got ONE moral victory in right? He still doesn’t kill, right? He managed to stop the Joker without killing him or letting him die. Too bad five minutes later even that victory is undermined by Batman killing Harvey Dent. So Joker not only corrupted Harvey Dent, he got Batman to kill at the same time. Great job, Batman