Somebody get that man a cough drop.

I finally saw The Dark Knight, and wasn't disappointed.

I was struck, however, by the poverty of dialogue quality throughout the feature. The film as a whole was intelligently structured, played well with the tropes of "heist" and "serial killer" and featured one of the best villains of the decade. Perhaps it is only in contrast to Ledger's Joker that the rest of the characters fall so flat, their internal conflicts situational at best.

Ok, I take it back a little. Gary Oldman did his job well. And Aaron Eckhart's Dent is two-dimensional by design. But all of the best lines were reserved for the Joker. The rest of TDK was populated with cliche after cliche: "Have a nice trip, see you next fall," "I didn't sign up for this," "No more dead cops." And of course, the plain-vanilla female love interest is grossly insufficient to satisfy Bechdel's Rule (but that's not why we go to Batman movies anyway).

I was left with the sense that TDK is a Good, even Very Good superhero movie with a lot of unfulfilled potential. Perhaps more nuance would have edged TDK away from Summer Blockbuster and further into Psychological Thriller territory. However, this would risk alienating some viewers and scaring the living shit out of ten year olds - the Batman franchise target market. Can't have that.

I would love to see Ledger get an Oscar nod. He brought the Sociopath A-game as well as Kevin Spacey in Se7en or Anthony Hopkins in Silence. But I still think Batman Begins was a better movie.

Rand and I also felt compelled to ponder: in a showdown of billionaire playboys, who would win? Iron Man or Batman?

Our conclusion - Bruce Wayne would totally own Tony Stark with his killer martial arts skills out of costume. However, the Iron Man armor would repulsor-beam Batman into a fine grey-and-yellow mist.