Day for Knight

Tragically overlong by an hour, The Dark Knight (2008) strains itself delivering two films at once: an intense battle between Batman and the Joker capped by an ill-advised run-in with second tier villain Two-Face. With the final product clocking in at a butt-numbing one-hundred-and-fifty-two-minutes, surely someone on the committee realized the first ninety would’ve sufficed nicely. Christian Bale is furniture as Batman, and Heath Ledger rifles through Brando’s grab bag of shrugs, mumbles and tics for Joker, but their skirmish crackles and hums — and looks positively stunning in Blu-ray. Once the Joker is caught and the focus lands on Aaron Eckhart’s character, the script becomes infected with hollow grandstanding and purple moralizing, as if a dull needle were popping the balloon.