Alright guys, this a list that /someone/ posted over at the IMDB message boards, basically it's 34 reasons why he thought TDK failed as a coherent story. Check some of these out and let us know what you think :
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1. The bank raid
The school bus just happens to break through the wall at the exact moment that the last remaining bank robber is holding a gun on the Joker. How is everything so perfectly choreographed that the robber ends up in the exact spot he needs to be to get hit by the bus? Not realistic at all. Then, the school bus drives out of the bank at the exact right moment to join up with a huge procession of other school buses! And there just happens to be a space for the bus to enter. For this to happen, everything from the beginning to the end of the raid would have to happen with split-second precision and timing with no room for error.
Impossible, as there are too many variables at play. For example, the gunshot-toting bank manager. That was unforeseen and put a crimp in their plan. Yet despite this, everything *still* runs like clockwork. ...
The firefight with the bank manager didn’t take very long. Joker could have made up for it by just packing the cash a little faster. He probably allowed a little extra time, just in case. It’s a key insight which this critic missed; Joker always expects the unexpected, and takes chances. He was there in person to manipulate the other guy into place at just the right moment, but if it hadn’t worked out, he’d have just killed him in some other way. And if it all failed and Joker got killed, what does he care? To pull the bus out of the bank into that line (which probably runs on schedule every day, like the school buses in my town do) there would have to be some timing, but not to the split-second; if he’d been a bit early, then Joker could have just idled for a moment. When he does pull out, there “just happens” to be room to get in because the next bus is driven by a person who sees him coming and doesn’t want to crash. Not a whole choreographed machine, but individual units making their own decisions; the stuff of chaos theory.
2. Other bank raid nonsense
i) Why was the alarm that can disable the entire security system of the bank on the roof - the easiest place for would-be criminals to get at it? ii) Why abseil onto the roof from across the street? This is the least inconspicuous way to get into the bank?! Furthermore, breaking that window would lead to glass showering down onto the street, which would attract attention, would it not? iii) Where are the Bank’s security guards? iv) At the beginning of the raid, there are screaming customers everywhere. Near the end of the raid, the customers have mysteriously disappeared. Where did they go? Running off into the street to alert the cops? ...
Short of abseiling in, the roof is not that easy to get to. It’s a bold move. I don’t think that they are overly concerned about being inconspicuous, as madmen.
3. Scarecrow scene
Batman jumps from the top level of the parking structure and lands on an escaping SUV. What happens? The SUV is crushed AND the impact of Batman makes it stop. GIVE ME A BREAK! Batman is only a mere mortal. He would have bounced off the car and would have made a minor dent at best. He was only about 50 feet up, yet when he lands *on his legs*, he is somehow strong enough to crush the entire roof of the vehicle!
He may have a point about Batman landing on his feet and having enough weight (even in armor) to crush the roof, but I think it was the driver who stopped, hitting the brakes.
4. The Hong Kong section
Overblown and overwritten. There are simpler ways to grab Lau and bring him back to the US. Why grab him in his office building?! Does he live there? I think not. Batman could’ve nabbed Lau *far easier* at his residence/on the street/in his car etc with less personal risk and expensive planning.
Could well be that Lau has equal security just about everywhere; he certainly has enough money, and we all know that he is a coward.
5. The Rachel/Dent/Wayne triangle.
I hated the fact that Rachel was in a serious relationship with Dent yet she still kissed Wayne on the balcony at that party. This made me lose respect for her character because she is basically cheating on Dent. Rachel is supposed to be this strong, moral woman with inalienable principles, yet she cheats on someone she clearly loves. The triangle didn’t need to be written this way; it would have been better if Bruce went in for the kiss and Rachel pulled back.
Rachel loved Bruce first. Before this scene, Harvey discussed this very matter with her, asking for a commitment, and she expressly did not agree. She doesn’t take forever to make a decision, as less principled women might; trust me, it’s not wise to rush uncertainly into marriage; I don’t believe that there’s anything immoral in just dating for a while.
6. Commissioner Loeb’s death.
Right at the moment Gordon arrives with news of the threat, Loeb decides to have drink, and dies right at the moment Gordon is figuring out where the DNA could have come from. Okay, it’s possible but it’s just so contrived! Let’s assume that Loeb only found out about the threat when Gordon arrived. How ridiculous is this?! Surely if the Police Commissioner’s life is at risk, you want to let him know *straight away* just in case something happens? Gordon should have phoned Loeb and filled him in. This is just logical behavior, especially in the cell-phone age.
During the ten minutes that Gordon would have taken to walk across the building to Loeb’s office, he was presumably working on other steps that needed to be taken.
7. Bruce’s party
How does Bruce know of the triple threat to Dent/Loeb and the judge? There is no way he can know. ... On top of this, he manages to get to Dent and hide him seconds before the Joker appears. How convenient!
Maybe building security called Wayne about the Joker in the elevator? Maybe he has some early warning system of his own in place to alert him of armed men about to enter his home? Since he was hosting a party for Dent, Batman probably did not need to know about the DNA to figure out what Joker might be after.
9. The Joker crashing Bruce’s party.
Why wait till Dent is at a party in Bruce Wayne’s penthouse *after* announcing to the world that Dent is a target? Of course, the whole thing is set-up so that the Joker can throw Rachel off the roof. This could have been written in a far more realistic way. People will argue that the Joker is an attention whore - okay, I can accept that to an extent, but it seems like a hell of a lot of trouble to go to find Dent when if he really wanted to kill Dent he could have done it in a far easier manner.
This is nothing. Like the Joker gives a damn about efficiency. Easy vs. fun. Duh.
10. Rachel and Batman falling off the roof.
I can just about buy the fact that the fall was broken by Batman’s wings, but come on! No sign of any injury to Rachel? She wasn’t even winded. Ever so slightly beyond the realms of possibility I feel.
Extra effort on Batman’s part. He just plain did a good job of shielding her with himself.
11. Fingerprints on the bullet sequence.
...Bruce arrives in the room and finds those men tied up at the exact moment the shooting is going to take place. How convenient.
Bruce rushed out as soon as he had a lead exactly because he knew that time was short. The timing was a bit contrived, I guess, but the coincidence is not all that extreme.
12. Commissioner Loeb’s funeral.
We’re expected to believe that with hundreds of Cops around and ridiculously tight security that the Joker managed to worm his way into the Police honour guard?! Didn’t anyone notice the guy with the huge scars on his face? Granted, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility, but with everyone *expecting* some kind of assassination attack and the Cops on alert, it’s just laughable that this could take place.
Hiding in plain sight. Again, fortune favors the bold: It is remarkable how much you can actually get away with when you take “unlikely” risks.
13. Gordon’s faked death.
Why would you put your family through the worst trauma imaginable when they were not even at risk?! Gordon says he faked his death because his family was at risk but this is utter nonsense. Why? Because the Joker thinks Gordon is dead. If he’s dead, he’s not a threat ergo his family is not at risk. Even if Gordon thought his family *could* be at risk, why not just get them out of the city and the state and into protective custody? Surely this is better than making them think he was dead?
I think he’s asking why Gordon didn’t tell them that he was alive when the Joker was unlikely to check. Ehn. Better safe than sorry. Admittedly, this was done to manipulate the audience; the filmmakers had to know that we’d find it hard to believe that Jim Gordon had really died at that point. Still, I don’t agree that protective custody would have worked better than misdirection.
14. The Gotham chase
...Batman has such prodigious control over the Bat-bike that he can execute a perfect 180 turn at speed using a wall as leverage, but when he’s charging the Joker he loses all control and flips the bike?!
To me, flipping the bike shows that Batman really wanted to kill the Joker. Changing his mind at the last second is what threw him off.
...The Joker fires a bazooka missile at the SWAT van carrying Dent. If not for the tumbler getting in the way and taking the hit, Dent would have died. Again, this is all apparently part of the Joker’s fiendish plan to…get caught.
Who says that Joker did not want to kill Dent and get caught? Once more, his plans are not set in stone.
15. The Joker’s escape.
The Joker is Gotham’s most notorious and wanted criminal, yet they leave him *uncuffed* and guarded by a single Cop?! And of course, the Cop just happens to have a suspect temperament, which the Joker manipulates. ... Again, everything happens at exactly the right time. All this is dependant upon having a single cop guarding the joker inside the room who loses his cool, allowing the Joker a chance to escape. And of course, the guy with a bomb in his stomach just happens to be captured and in jail at the exact time the Joker needs him.
If a guy is crazy enough to let the Joker plant that junk in his gut, he’d surely be willing to go to jail whenever Joker wanted him to. Of course, there’s no guarantee that the cops would take him; sometimes a determined person has no way at all to get arrested. [/sarcasm] With the guard, Joker didn’t plan on that exact situation; he improvised, as he often does. The officer’s temperament is no surprise, though; it’s well-established that “problem” cops are the rule in Gotham, not the exception.
16. The idea that the Joker ‘planned to be caught’.
After Rachel dies, Gordon is angry at himself and says ‘he wanted us to lock him up in the MCU’. So, let me get this straight: the massive chase scene through Gotham which culminated in Gordon capturing the Joker was really part of the Joker’s grand scheme as he ‘planned’ to get caught?! The Joker even explained *at length* that he was not someone who planned things, yet he is apparently the greatest criminal tactician that ever lived!
It’s just this strange idea that this critic has that when things worked out the way that Joker wanted, that must mean that everything about it must have gone exactly as he expected. I think that he’s happy if things go more or less the “right” way, and that he simply finds a different way if they don’t. Or takes a hit, laughs, and just plays some other game.
17. Reese revealing the true identity of Batman.
So, Reese goes on TV and says he’ll reveal the truth about Batman. Meanwhile, the scene is intercut with the Joker in a warehouse burning his half of the mob’s cash. Then, *in the very next scene*, the Joker is calling into the TV show and threatening to blow up a hospital if someone doesn’t kill Reese! How does the Joker go from burning money in a warehouse, to finding a TV, watching the show then calling up with his hospital threat in a matter of hours?
So, if the Joker decides to blow up a hospital in response to Reese’s TV ploy, how does he and his mob manage to rig the place with gas canisters and explosives *in broad daylight* without being seen? Come on! This is beyond ridiculous. And it’s not about suspension of disbelief, it’s about not treating your audience like morons. There is *no way* on earth that in this day and age of heightened security that an entire hospital could be rigged to blow in broad daylight and no one saw a thing! The entire building was pulverized – imagine the amount of explosives and petrol canisters needed to do that kind of damage. And again, what’s going on with the timeline? The Joker is burning money; somehow finds a TV to watch; calls in and threatens Reese; wires a hospital and visits Dent all in the space of the same day and seemingly within a few hours?
Right; Joker would have had to have been watching tv right at the moment that that show started, flipping randomly through the channels, or else he never would have known about it. I mean, it’s not like they ever advertise such things ahead of time. 
My theory is that Joker gets the fire going, then checks the time and hits the number that he’s already programmed into his speed dial. He asks the producer how their show’s going, and gets thrown on the air, showing that the people running that program are kind of irresponsible. (Unrealistic? Hardly.)
A day or two before, he might have decided to bomb the hospital for this move to get at Reese, or he might have already set that up, since he wanted to get at Dent, and just worked Reese into it on a whim.
18. Sal Maroni’s confession.
After Gordon visits Dent, Maroni just happens to be in the hospital *right outside Dent’s room* and just happens to have an attack of conscience and tells Gordon where to find the Joker?!
Pretty sure that Maroni was right outside Dent’s room because he wanted to find Gordon. Probably not conscience so much as fear and resentment of the Joker. No honor among thieves.
19. Harvey Dent’s turn to the dark side.
For a start, the whole Dent story should have been saved for Part 3 instead of just being crammed into TDK. There wasn’t enough time to develop his fall into evil; it all happens in about 5 minutes. For 90 minutes, Dent is portrayed as this morally upstanding man of principle, but Dent goes from crime fighting golden boy with a an unshakeable dedication to doing good to a psychopathic murderer, and worse - potential child-murderer - in the space of 24 hours. Why? Because his girlfriend dies and he becomes disfigured? No, wait - it’s because the Joker - as well as being the greatest criminal tactician that ever lived - is also the greatest psychologist that ever lived, and a few lines of his cod philosophy at Dent’s bedside is enough to tip him over the edge and into child-murderer mindset.
This is not really a plot problem at all, so much as an entirely subjective reaction to artistic handling. Personally, I loved it: looked like what really shattered Harvey was that, for just a moment, when he saw the coin, he believed that she must have survived. Also, I am glad that the story wasn’t dragged on and milked like it’s done in comic books. This series is elevating the material, really showing how adaptations like this should be made. Too bad some folks got no taste.
20. Batman’s sonar scheme.
Lucius Fox says something along the lines of ‘You took my sonar concept and applied it to every phone in the city’. Someone explain to me how this is possible! Given the sonar technology has to be embedded in the phone itself (as we saw when Fox was in Hong Kong and left his sonar phone at security), are we expected to believe that Batman has the technology manually implanted into *every cell-phone in the city” – a city which, incidentally, has 30 million inhabitants, according to Fox. If it wasn’t manual, then how is this mass cell-phone scheme to be explained?
Batman describes it as a signal “generating/receiver” so that might account for it, somehow. Frankly, though, I couldn’t figure out this one, either.
21. The ferry face-off.
When exactly did the Joker have time to rig two ferries with 100 barrels of fuel without anyone noticing? ...
Must have had a lot of guys working double time to set up all of that. It is indeed rather unbelievable.
22. Batman’s sonar vision.
When batman faces the Joker, his sonar vision momentarily fails and this causes him to lose his bearings, allowing the Joker to attack. Why?! Earlier on in the sequence, *Batman switches between sonar vision and normal vision*. When the sonar fails, why doesn’t he just use his own vision?!
It’s just a few seconds that make the difference. Not reacting fast enough could have cost Batman his life, but no one is perfect.
23. The Joker overpowering Batman.
After Batman’s sonar vision fails, the Joker somehow beats the crap out of Batman and manages to hold him down with a steel bar. Given the fact that Batman has been portrayed as almost superhuman for the preceding two hours (including easily subduing the Joker during interrogation), how is it possible that all of a sudden the Joker is stronger. In Batman begins, BW takes on about 20+ ninjas and none of them get the better of him. In TDK, all it takes to down Batman is steel bar and couple of rottweilers!
The moment of disorientation just mentioned gives Joker an instant’s advantage where he gets the bar onto Batman, with leverage. Funny how this critic complains when Batman is “superhuman” and complains when he is not.
24. Dent at the hospital
After being marked for death, almost killed and then disfigured, why is Dent left alone at the hospital with no one guarding him?
Joker shot at least one cop in Dent’s room. No telling what other security he might have overcome.
25. Poor editing
i) How did the Joker leave the party after Batman and Rachel went off the roof? Dent is still locked in a cupboard somewhere and lots of party guests at risk. Should this not have been tied up with perhaps a five second shot? ii) The Joker taunts the cop guarding him and goads him into a fight. Cut to the next scene, the Joker has him as a hostage. Why cut out the scene with *how* he overpowered this guy? Surely this would be a scene than fans want to see?! iii) Dent and Rachel are kidnapped by the Joker’s henchmen. Why didn’t we see it? Again, we are just told it happened instead being shown what happened.
I think that there’s enough great action in the film, as it is. This guy’s greedy for more, but that’s probably because it’s the only thing he can appreciate.
26. The kidnapping of Dent
It is standard police procedure to allow a senior public figure whose life has been threatened to go to visit his girlfriend seconds after being pursued by a madman hellbent on killing him? Is it also good police practice to let him go without any kind of police escort. The fact that the Joker’s vast network of henchmen were *not* captured and may still pose a threat did not seem to matter.
Let’s face it, this D.A. is a maverick with a lot of pull. Also, remember that corrupt cops captured them. Standard procedure was sabotaged.
27. Gordon’s negligence
... Gordon just swallows the ‘let’s blame it all on Batman’ idea without question, ignoring the fact that the so-called 5 deaths could easily be blamed on any of the Joker’s henchmen. Gordon is too busy with composing his poetic monologue to actually think like a Cop.
Batman actually did kill Dent. There’s a hundred cops coming in there, and no one else on the scene but Gordon and his family. If they say Dent is innocent, then there’s no way to claim self-defense. Therefore, blaming the other murders on anyone else would be pointless – someone would still have to take the blame for Dent.
Also, the snide comment about Gordon’s poetry shows how clueless this critic is regarding the true beauty of this picture. I loved the final line, matching the title. There, the whole film comes together elegantly to serve as a definition to a mainstream audience of that classic job description for Batman.
28. Pointless ending
The film tries to make Batman into a mythical anti-hero with his sacrifice at the end, but the whole thing is moot really - Batman will be ‘hunted’ for about 10 minutes and then he’ll be Bruce Wayne again, so he won’t be in any danger! Anyway - what has changed since the beginning of the film? Gordon tells Dent that the official policy is to ‘arrest the vigilante known as Batman on sight’. Is this not the same situation at the end of the film?!
It is true that the sacrifice is moot, only an issue on a philosophical level. But does that mean that it is just a waste of time? Gordon’s speech is really not all that long. I might have cut one or two of the six or seven lines. However, when he says that Batman is not a hero, but something more, the script is hearkening back to the earlier lines from Alfred, and the point is that Batman is an anti-hero because he never was after fame and adoration. So, no, nothing’s really changed, and he certainly will survive. Maybe it’s not too terribly exciting, but it is still a nice thing to see.
29. - 31.
Trivia.
32. Dent and Maroni crash
Dent has Maroni trapped in his car, and instead of shooting Maroni, he kills the driver of the car, causing huge crash?! Half of Dent’s face is melted off and he must be in serious pain, yet he decides the best way to further his goal is to cause a car crash in which he could conceivably be killed?!
insane adj. not of sound mind; mad; extremely foolish; irrational
33. The Joker’s philosophy
As the Joker explains to Dent at the hospital, he doesn’t have a plan. He goes into detail about how he detests people with plans and how he’s all about chaos and anarchy. But wait, everything in the film completely negates his character because the story paints him as the greatest criminal tactician and planning mastermind that ever lived! For him to control *everything* to such a degree and have everything work *perfectly * with no mistakes, despite lots unforeseen events taking place, means that he must have planned everything to last detail. This is the reasoning of those defend the Joker’s apparent omnipotence, but it conflicts with his own philosophy! I’m sorry, but this is terrible writing.
This is known as the straw man fallacy; the critic gives what he says “is the reasoning of those defend the Joker’s apparent omnipotence” then disproves that, with no regard for the possibility of other arguments.
There is power in madness. The Joker is fearless, and is every bit as free from convention as he claims. He’s just chosen the wrong god. Being an agent of chaos, tearing down the plans and structures of others may require a certain degree of planning, but that’s not an overwhelming paradox. He simply believes that his planning, like all planning, is fundamentally illusionary, useless, even though it can derail what might appear useful to those he considers weak-minded. Furthermore, Joker is downplaying that element when he talks to Dent, for his own pointless purposes. Certainly, though, it is true that it is not personal or sensible that he targeted them. He thinks that Rachel “just happened” to be the one whose murder would cause the most widespread harm. The real tragedy is that Harvey doesn’t give her more credit than that; that he lost sight of the choices that she made in her life, and also forgot himself to the point that he didn’t realize why she had been willing to die for him.
The world of Batman is extremely gothic; too much so for the American mainstream, in fact. That’s the reason that it regularly cycles into camp comedy: Denial. What is the secret to the Joker’s successes? The existential threat of injustice unleashed. In a proper Batman story, our protagonist stands precariously at the edge of supreme darkness, himself beyond convention, striving to ascend through trial and error to a state which may not even be genuinely possible.
Remember, Remember, The Fifth of November, The Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot.
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Originally Posted by Odetta
You're very welcome. Am thinking to grab one of those "Why So Serious" rings in honor of Heath. 
