I’ve seen it twice now and my mind remains the same.

It’s a flawed masterpiece.

The first half of the film is incredible. Absolutely amazing. Everything I’ve always wanted in a Batman movie.

The second half… degenerates into cliches, contrivances, and convenient coincidences. It’s got laziness. Pure laziness.

Sorry folks, but I laughed out loud whenever he tried to use his “scary voice.” It sounded silly.

Anything involving Katie Holmes was dumb. “I’m an Assistant District Attorney! Let me through!” GOOD GOD! The entire theater laughed both times at how incredibly stupid that line was.

Ra’s al Ghul was perfect.

Bruce Wayne was perfect.

Commissioner Gordon… needs some work. He’s not the Gordon I love from the books yet. At the end, he’s there, but watching him turn into the Gordon we love was not as fun as watching Bruce Wayne turn into Batman. If we had the YEAR ONE Gordon, we would have been set.

And that’s the thing that kept hitting me. Especially after watching SIN CITY.

Why isn’t this YEAR ONE?

Yeah, that scene is from YEAR ONE, but they did it different.
Yeah, that scene is from YEAR ONE, but they did it different.
Look, another scene is from YEAR ONE, but they did it different.

Everytime they did that, I thought, “If they did it the way it was done in the comic it would have made sense.”

All the errors from the second half of the movie are convenient contrivances.

Katie Holmes getting across the bridge.
Katie Holmes finding Gordon in the middle of a raging city going insane.
Katie Holmes finding the same kid Batman found.

Yeah, the Katie Holmes character was annoying. Not because she’s Katie Holmes (and what nice nipples she has, by the way — thank you for sharing them dear… we’ve all seen them, you can put them away now), but because of the way the character is used. It’s… unfortunate. A wasted opportunity.

Especially when we could have had a perfectly reasonable Selina Kyle in her place. Not who Selina Kyle turns into — we can save that for the sequel — but a perfectly reasonable Selina Kyle cameo — about five minutes long — would have been perrrrrrfect. And it would have cost just as much as having Katie Holmes throughout the entire picture.

Let me perfectly clear on this: I really like the movie. I wanted to see it twice. But the reason I (and, I suspect, you) want to see a movie a second time is because there are things we want to see again.

Everything I wanted to see again was in the first half of the movie.

Yeah, the Batmobile was cool, but I could have seen that in a Bruckheimer movie. I don’t go to a Batman movie to see the Batmobile. I go to a Batman movie to see BATMAN.

Liam Neeson blew me away. Christian Bale blew me away. Even Micheal Caine was a blast.

But dear God, can someone figure out how to make a Batsuit that lets our poor boy turn his friggin’ neck???