Perhaps they needed more rum while filming The Rum Diary. Writer-director Bruce Robinson’s tepid bore is an adaptation of a Hunter S. Thompson novel that, save for a lively line or two, strips all the zip out of Thompson’s prose and makes star (and friend of the late gonzo journalist) Johnny Depp look like he just wandered in from The Tourist. Like that bomb, The Rum Diary will put you to sleep with its unrelenting lack of action or Depp crackle; though the actor likely wanted to pay tribute to Thompson by embodying his alter-ego, Paul Kemp, he would have better served the writer’s memory by putting the brakes on the project after Robinson got his hands on it.

Kemp is one of the least interesting characters in the film, an alcoholic New York journalist who moves to Puerto Rico in 1960 to work for a failing newspaper there. But the guy’s more hesitant observer than wildman scribe. After being relegated to churning out horoscopes by his fatalist new editor (Richard Jenkins), Kemp is intrigued when a wealthy businessman (Aaron Eckhart) brings him into his inner circle to make him a proposition of questionable journalistic ethics. Meanwhile, Kemp crushes on the guy’s girl (Amber Heard) and bumbles around — yes, usually drunk, but in a most sober way — with his unkempt colleague, Sala (Michael Rispoli). (Giovanni Ribisi has a small role as an even more unkempt and possibly delusional colleague, but the actor’s high nasal affect and forcibly wacked-out performance reduce the role to a sight gag.)

And that’s about it. There’s no mystery that the deal Kemp is offered is sinister; there’s no chemistry between Depp and Heard; there’s no fun when the characters go carousing, mostly because their drinking after (or during) a pathetic day at work is more like imbibing at a funeral than anything celebratory. Even the cinematography is dim. (Which is quite a feat while shooting under the Puerto Rican sun.) The most interesting line is spoken during a trip of the drug-induced kind: “Your tongue is like an accusatory giblet!” Kemp tells Sala while hallucinating. If you want a more accurate taste of Hunter S. Thompson, revisit Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and forget his foray into fiction.

And that’s where THIS person is going to torment you

The sexual attention that the 13-year-old half-Lebanese, half-American character gets in Towelhead doesn’t divide her in two; it’s enough to rip the poor girl, and the film, to shreds. With its sensationalist title (from Alicia Erian’s novel of the same name), you’d imagine that the central trauma young Jasira faces living in Gulf War-era America is prejudice, particularly living in not-terribly-diverse areas like Syracuse, N.Y., and suburban Texas. But from the opening scene in Alan Ball’s feature directorial debut, it’s clear the teenager has bigger issues to deal with than being stereotyped.

Jasira (Summer Bishil, who was 18 during filming) is introduced with shaving cream on her pubic area, which is about to be shaved by mom’s seedy live-in boyfriend, Barry (Chris Messina). When her mother, Gail (Maria Bello), comes home and finds the evidence, naturally she freaks out—and then ships Jasira from central New York to live with her father in Texas, noting to her sobbing daughter at the airport that “this whole thing is your fault.”

Jasira, she says, needs to learn that “there are right ways and wrong ways to act around men,” the wrong way apparently being a girl whose body is changing yet still likes to wear shorts and cute tops. Gail believes that living with a man, even if it’s her boorish, ignorant, jackass of a father, Rifat (Peter Macdissi), will help teach her. Sure enough, the first morning Jasira comes to the breakfast table in her summer-appropriate PJs, Dad slaps her good.

It’s not the only abuse Jasira will face, be it physical, emotional, or sexual, and she seems to get it from all the adults around her, all the time. Rifat’s new neighbors include an Army reservist (Aaron Eckhart), who molests Jasira—and takes her out on a date!—after catching her looking at his girlie magazines, which she masturbates to, and his young son, Zack (Chase Ellison), who calls her “towelhead” and a host of other slurs whenever she’s baby-sitting him.

Jasira’s schoolmates, seen primarily in a French class in which the teacher’s accent is straight Texan, also mock and insult her. A black boy, Thomas (Eugene Jones), invites her over for dinner after he catches her masturbating during recess—she does this a lot, and Ball doesn’t shy away from it—and gropes her as soon as his parents are out of sight.

Her father isn’t thrilled that Jasira got her period, forbids him from seeing Thomas once he discovers he’s black, calls his ex-wife all sorts of names, and fools around with his new, scantily dressed girlfriend right in front of his daughter. When Mom visits, she’s still a cruel nutcase.

Unbelievably, there’s more. And the worst part? Ball, writer of 1999’s Oscar-winning American Beauty, attempts to mix humor into the horror. Apparently, characters like Rifat are supposed to be so racist, controlling, and narrow-minded, it’s funny.

Needless to say, it doesn’t work. One flaw is that Bishil, while pretty, never comes across as the Lolita-like temptress she’s allegedly supposed to be, so all the blame that adults put on her—fundamentally misguided even if the girl were a mini Angelina Jolie—feels forced.

The piling on, though, is Towelhead’s undoing: Nearly every scene Jasira is in is sexually charged, and except for another neighborhood couple (Toni Collette and Matt Letscher), not one character in the film is anything but hateful. Collette’s sensible Melina, who starts to see what Jasira is going through and tries to protect her, is a bit of a reprieve from the battering—both for the girl and the audience. But ultimately Towelhead is as intolerable as its name.

“Let’s wind the clocks back a year,” the Joker says to a gang of miscreants in need of some anarchic guidance in The Dark Knight. You follow his instruction: Back in the summer of 2007, fanboys had begun to be placated about the counter-typecasting of Heath Ledger as Batman’s clown-faced villain, as images leaked of a pretty boy turned creepshow, his hair greasy and matted, his face scarred and messily L’Oreal’d like an Extreme Makeover contestant who got caught in a hurricane.

Word of Ledger’s phenomenal performance followed—then, in January, his sudden death.

Since then, there’s been posthumous Oscar talk. Best Picture chatter, too. Consider all this, and set the clock back to now. Whether the film is any good has almost stopped being an issue. The real question is: Can The Dark Knight possibly live up to all its hype?

Of course not—but it does come close. Christopher Nolan’s sequel to his darkly psychological, nearly Ang Lee-ian rebooting of the Caped Crusader franchise, 2005’s Batman Begins, is as rich and epic as his origin story (152 minutes to the predecessor’s 140), satisfying as a well-crafted crime drama but notable for lacking any traces of camp.

Though, in the new installment, the vigilante shares the screen with two iconic villains, the Joker and Two-Face, it’s unlikely that more outlandish series characters such as the Penguin or Mr. Freeze will ever walk Nolan’s universe. Like Iron Man, this Batman (Christian Bale) is a superhero of the real world. His “powers” come courtesy of technology, not freak accidents. He works with local law enforcement, such as Gotham City police Lt. James Gordon (Gary Oldman) and, under his billionaire do-gooder guise of Bruce Wayne, District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). And Martin Scorsese, take note: In The Dark Knight, Batman battles, of all rivals, the mafia.

There’s less fun in Nolan’s interpretation, but the saga is just as exhilarating. Ledger’s Joker supplies the only traces of humor in a script (co-written by the director and his brother, Jonathan) whose plot is complex but fundamentally deals with the evergreen topic of good versus evil and the angst that ensues when the lines between the two blur. The Joker is introduced in the opening sequence, supervising a daytime bank robbery and ingeniously killing off each of his clown-masked accomplices as soon as they’ve completed their integral tasks.

He doesn’t really care about the money, though, which actually belongs to the mob. The Joker just wants to introduce a little chaos to Gotham City, and he uses the cash to leverage the aid of organized crime in ridding the world of “the Batman” and, worse, public sweetheart and all-around good guy Dent.

Speaking of sweethearts, Batman’s former squeeze, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, mercifully taking over for Batman Begins’ Katie Holmes), is now with Dent but has promised Bruce that they will be together again once his dress-up days are behind him.

Now, Ledger. Yes, his performance is every bit as inventive, freaky, and career-making as rumors and trailers have led you to believe. His Joker’s voice is slightly fey, his speech often deliberate, like someone—appropriately—who mentally isn’t all there. He smacks his lips—his smile extended by knife scars—and darts his tongue.

This Joker’s origin is unclear—he tells different stories about who cut his face and why. (The first version, which lends the film its “Why So Serious?” tagline, is absolutely chilling, thanks in no small part to Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard’s spot-on score.)

Ledger’s odd mannerisms are small, however, putting miles between his and Jack Nicholson’s take on the character in 1989’s Batman and moving into Anton Chigurh territory: As with the No Country for Old Men villain, you’ll get tense when the Joker’s onscreen, ready for some horrific act to follow.

But the most complimentary thing that can be said about Ledger’s performance is that, except for that turn-back-the-clock line, you don’t spend the movie thinking about his passing—and that’s because Ledger isn’t there. It’s only the Joker you see.

In comparison, Bale is positively wooden—that phlegmy Batvoice has got to go—and the best part about Eckhart’s contribution is the ghoulish special effects once Dent finally becomes Two-Face, which happens way too late and way too easily. (Poor editing also truncates crucial sequences such as the well-publicized party scene.)

The action, however, is thrilling: From gigantic explosions to an airborne rig to a nearly silent shot of Batman gliding from a rooftop on a dark Hong Kong night, Nolan crafts images that are both heart-stopping and beautiful. The new Batsuit, -mobile, and -pod? All barely noticeable—or notable—when there are fireballs to behold.

Overshadowed by the Ledger buzz is The Dark Knight’s technological milestone: Nolan filmed approximately 30 minutes, mostly action sequences, with IMAX cameras, marking the first time such a technique has been used in a feature film. The result—shots that are expansive, deep, and immersive—may not be immediately obvious to anyone not looking for the cinematographical switches.

But walking out to a parking garage or your own city’s streets afterward, you’ll likely have a “Hey, this isn’t Gotham!” moment. It’s a level of transportation that no cackling, Kool Aid-colored villain could achieve, but it’s what every comic book fan truly wants.