“The Dark Night” broke box office records this weekend, earning $155 million at the box office.

But the latest adaptation of Batman comic book series did not live up to the Oscar buzz, mainly because it fell into the same trap as 2007’s “Spiderman 3:” too many villains.

[Warning: Spoilers ahead!]

The late Heath Ledger delivers the best depiction of the maniacal, Batman archenemy The Joker ever. He is both twistingly hilarious and shockingly grotesque. Ledger doesn’t just steal every scene that he’s in, he steals the movie.

[Heath] Ledger put Christian Bale to shame. Bale appeared to have mailed in his performance ...The error that the writers, the director and – probably most to blame – the movie studio (Time Warner) make is diverting attention away from Ledger’s Joker by crow barring in another villain from the Gotham city universe: Harvey “Two Face” Dent.

Dent is a mob-busting prosecutor who, in the original comic series, loses half of his face and his left hand after a mobster throws acid on him, warping his mind and turning him into a criminal. “The Dark Knight” puts a twist on this tale, mainly to synch up Dent’s disfigurement with this new Joker storyline.

Aaron Eckhart (“Thank you for Smoking”) does a good enough rendition of Dent, but it pales in comparison to the masterpiece of Ledger’s The Joker. The audience clearly wanted The Joker. Whether it was making a pencil disappear or asking a gangster “Why so serious?,” The Joker elicited the biggest audience reactions on screen.

Ledger put Christian Bale to shame. Bale appeared to have mailed in his performance as Batman and his alter ego (or is it the other way around?) billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne.  Batman was surprisingly tame. The movie doesn’t explore to any noteworthy degree the internal fight between the caped crusader do-gooder and his baser instincts and antipathy toward the criminal element, which is responsible for the death of his parents (i.e., “The Dark Knight”).

The Joker could have exposed that conflict and heightened it. Instead, The Joker primarily draws out and reveals the dark side of Dent, a character that should have filled out the next sequel in the series.

Recall in “Batman Begins,” the original movie in this latest Batman series, Wayne/Batman is unable to kill in the name of justice, despite prodding from his estranged teacher and mentor Ra’s al Ghul. At the conclusion, Batman decides not to kill al Ghul, but he chooses not to save his life either, leaving him on a train that crashes and blows up.   

In “The Dark Knight,” however, Batman doesn’t hesistate in saving the life of The Joker. In fact, Wayne/Batman doesn’t seem to be that afflicted by the death of his love interest Rachel Dawes, which The Joker played some role in.

The film alludes to the fact that the police will now hunt Batman as a vigilante in the next film but not because The Joker has pushed Batman into becoming a vigilante. In Batman’s defense, it wasn’t him; it was the one-armed …ahem, one-faced man.

A few more problems with this otherwise stunning film are its length, which was a tad too long but not boring, the indiscernible fight scenes where it’s difficult to see action (this was also evident in “Batman Begins,” especially in the scenes at the docks where Batman captures mob boss Carmine Falcone) and Rachel Dawes.

Batman needs a hotter love interest in the next sequel. One that he’ll actually lament seeing die. Playing the lead of Batman’s love interest in this film was Maggie Gyllenhaal. Although less annoying than Katie Holmes, who filled the role in the earlier film, Gyllenhaal ‘s unattractiveness was, at times, disturbing.

There were a few up close shots where the laugh lines on her face (and, mind you, she wasn’t smiling at the time) made her look like she was 40 years old.

In her defense, Gyllenhaal has looked better in other appearances. But not here. Of all the unbelievable and unconceivable things in this action adventure movie – like Batman surviving a 20-story-plus fall off a building – the most unlikely was that both billionaire Wayne and the strong-jawed, sandy-blond-haired Dent were both fighting or angling over Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Now that Dawes/Gyllenhaal is dead, Batman needs a hotter love interest in the next sequel. One that he’ll actually lament seeing die.

Here is the rest of this weekend’s Top 10 box office list:
1.  "The Dark Knight" $155.3M   
2.  "Mamma Mia!"        $27.6M   
3.  "Hancock"           $14M  
4.  "Journey"           $11.9M   
5.  "Hellboy II"        $10M  
6.  "Wall-E"             $9.1M   
7.  "Space Chimps"       $7.4M   
8.  "Wanted"             $5.1M  
9.  "Get Smart"          $4.1M   
10. "Kung Fu Panda"      $1.8M  
[Bloomberg.com]