Jim Gordon 4VR!

I'm going to say this while holding up a riot shield for protection: I did not like The Dark Knight.

Let me wipe the rotten tomatoes off my face before I continue.

The Dark Knight was full of exciting action and cool props. But most of the characters fell flat for me. The Joker in particular felt like a waste; he existed to simply shake things up on-screen, and there was no attempt to create a unified persona for this strange and iconic character. (Which in some ways was cool. He was essentially all chaos, all the time. But that was *all* he was.) Also, I just have to point out: that tongue-spasm-licking thing is SO over. David Tennant totally killed it in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Batman/Bruce Wayne and the minor characters Lucius Fox and Alfred Best all suffered from Boringly Perfect Character Syndrome. They're never wrong. They're brilliant at everything they try. And as far as I can tell, none of them has a sense of humor. Christian Bale's Batman is icy cold and blandly good looking; I almost miss George Clooney's endless mugging. (Of course, who I really miss is Michael Keaton, who could take Batman's heroism seriously while gently mocking Wayne's role as a millionaire playboy.)

I might have mimicked my husband, who fell asleep during the film, if not for one character: Jim Gordon.

Every moment he was on screen, I believed in him. Gordon's struggle to balance his faith in Batman and his bitter fight to keep a crooked police department in line felt heartfelt. His actions were believable, his choices grounded. The character created in the Christopher Nolan re-launch of this franchise has many of the rich nuances of the character built in Frank Miller's Batman Year One. If you want to build a complex character within the framework of a simple action story, look to Jim Gordon.

This is just an off-the-cuff response to a movie that I wanted to like very much. I'm hoping to flesh out my Jim Gordon luv after another viewing.