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In defense of The Dark Knight, I was predisposed to disliking it. I’ve been salty with Christian Bale ever since he said that Batman Begins wasn’t a just a comic book movie — it was better. Well guess what Bale? I thought it sucked.

Superhero movie franchises have been lucky in that their sequels often eclipse their first outings. And The Dark Knight was better than Batman Begins. But certainly not “biggest opening weekend of all-time” better.

The Batsuit. In ten years, that stiff Batsuit will be almost as laughable as Batnipples on George Clooney.

The Batvoice. “Hey Christian,” Nolan says to the film’s star, “I want you to give me a husky whisper that sounds like you just gargled with whisky and Clorox. And make sure it sounds like @#$%.”

Organized crime in Gotham City. It’s strangely segregated and full of stereotypes. When the Russian, Italian, and black mobsters held a joint meeting with a Chinese corporate criminal, I cringed throughout the whole scene. Most of white characters were stereotyped heavily too — they were all righteous control freaks that went mad with power (from Batman to Harvey Dent to Jim Gordon to even the Joker).

Rachel Dawes. She’s was as stiff as the Batsuit and a total snoozefest.

Excessive runtime. I was ready for The Dark Knight to be over after an hour and a half. To my surprise, I still had AN HOUR TO GO. I would have preferred a “Previously in The Dark Knight…” showing a quick montage of the boring @#$% from the first half of the film, and then BAM! the movie actually starts in as the Joker busts out of jail.

When did Batman stop being fun? Both The Dark Knight and its predecessor are stalwarts of the serious. They struggle to remove any and all camp from the concept of Bruce Wayne and his billionaire’s hobby of crime fighting. C’mon, the guy dresses up like a freakin’ bat! He punches a psychotic clown in the face for fun! Batman is naturally campy. And that’s not a bad thing.

To all the people who produced The Dark Knight and to all those who celebrated its “realistic” qualities while overlooking the fact that the movie was largely devoid of smiles, laughter, and fun:

Why so serious?