I watched The Dark Knight for the second time Friday and I’m still surprised just how popular this movie was.  I just don’t get it.  Instead of seeing one of the best comic book movies ever made, I see a movie with lots and lots of flaws.

Here is a quick list of the things I didn’t like about The Dark Knight:

1. They replaced Gotham City with Chicago. In the first Batman movie, Batman Begins, the story clearly took place in a city that was unlike any other city in North America. It didn’t look like New York, Toronto, Chicago, or Seattle. It looked like the fictitious city of Gotham. In The Dark Knight, it was clearly shot in the city of Chicago. There was the elevated train tracks and the river that runs through the city. The only thing that was missing was a shot of Oprah and Stedman sharing a hot dog watching a ball game at Wrigley field.  It didn’t look anything at all like the Gotham in Batman Begins.
2. Batman sounded stupid. For some unknown reason, any time Batman was in costume, Christian Bale spoke in a low, guttural mumble. At first I thought it was some retarded way of disguising his voice, but even when Batman was with Lucius Fox (played by Morgan Freeman), he spoke in low mumbles. Christian Bale didn’t speak this way in the first movie.
3. The part of Rachel Dawes was played by a different actress.  In the first movie, Rachel was played by actress Katie Holmes.  In this movie, it was played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. If director Christopher Nolan wanted Gyllenhaal to play the part of Rachel, he should have cast her as Rachel in Batman Begins.  Changing actresses between movies is just as stupid as changing actresses halfway through a movie.  What’s even worse is that the viewer is supposed to just know that Gyllenhaal is now Rachel.  It’s as if Nolan thinks everyone has a subscription to Entertainment Weekly and watches Entertainment Tonight on a nightly basis. It’s lazy story telling.
4. The whole cellphone powered sonar technology thing.  Honestly, this was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t be surprised if this concept was pitched by a Make-a-Wish kid and nobody wanted to break the little tike’s heart by saying no.
5. Commissioner Gordon faking his own death even to his family.  I can understand him not trusting his own fellow police officers because everyone knows that Gotham City police are corrupt, but allowing his wife and children to think he’s dead makes him just as evil as the Joker.
6. Snatching the Asian man from the ground with a C-130.  I’ve got to admit this was really cool the first time I watched it in the John Wayne movie, The Green Berets.   It just seemed too hard to believe that a C-130 would be able to get in and get out of Chinese airspace without facing some kind of response from the Chinese air defense force. The last time I looked, Hong Kong is an island surrounded by lots and lots of water. It would have been far easier just to sneak the guy out on a boat of even a bat-submarine.
7. Batman kills Two-Face.  To save Commissioner Gordon’s son, Batman pushes Harvey Dent off a building, killing him in the process.  This went against almost everything Batman has ever stood for since he was created decades ago.  Batman does not kill. If he is going to kill Two-Face, why doesn’t he also kill the Joker?

There were quite a few things I liked about the movie.  For instance, Heath Ledger as the Joker was ridiculously good. He was by far the best thing in this movie. If I owned this movie on DVD instead of Blu-ray, I’d be temped to edit a version of the movie that only contained scenes with the Joker.