It was a marvel compared to the third act of nearly every other superhero movie, which can be summed up as "turn off brain, wait to see who's still standing at the end." This includes Batman Begins.

Maybe it's better to think after the third act instead of non-stop action.

I'm all for thinking in the third act (or any act) which is why the poor filmmaking in the end of the Dark Knight really bothered me. We have the nonsensical "I'm going to become a villain now" Harvey Dent switcheroo, the worst deus ex machina device ever with Lucius Fox's "location of everyone in the universe" machine, and the non-ending with The Joker kinda hanging there. Boy did that ever leave me with a bad taste in my mouth

Nobody's going to argue that the sonar gizmo was anything but retarded (nearly as much so as the microwave emitter in the previous film), but everything else was well motivated. The lack of resolution with the Joker is particularly important to the ideas of the film, even if it means that we don't get to see him being conclusively triumphed over.

If I considered those poor, I'd call them plot points. Filmmaking refers to too many different things to simply call what you don't like about the narrative poor filmmaking. Now, on to your points:

How is the change in Harvey Dent's character nonsensical? You know it's coming the entire time, and the movie has set it up throughout. Rachel dying causes him to lose faith in the system he was so trying to uphold. He's actually a very well developed character. There's no question he's going to descend into madness. It makes perfect sense to me.

As for the machine, it's actually Bruce Wayne's machine that he's been working on throughout the entire film. There are references to it earlier in the movie, so it can hardly be characterized as a Deus Ex Machina. They might not explicitly reference what the machine is, but a little mystery doesn't qualify as Deus Ex Machina. It also serves as a comment on people's personal liberties and freedoms (even the Patriot Act). Whether you liked it or not has no bearing on this - I thought it was kind of corny and definitely one of the film's few faults. Still, not Deus Ex Machina.

The Joker was caught. He was captured. The police watched the whole thing go down from across the street. They were coming to take him into custody. Do you really need all that wrapped up in a nice, neat package and them to actually show the Joker being hauled away? The film ended when it's story was over - it's point had been made with no loose strands.

Filmmaking is a catch-all term and I can hardly be faulted for not using the most specific one, but whatever. If we're going to nitpick, PeachyPete, learn the difference between "its" and "it's." Anyhoo:

The change in Harvey Dent's character irritates me for two reasons.
Number 1: We are to believe that Rachel's death sent him over the edge. Cool. So why does he effectively team up with her murderer? Because of the coin flip? Oh that makes sense. And he's supposed to be mad at Batman for not going to get Rachel instead of him, but because this is an idiot plot no one mentions that Batman DID attempt to go after Rachel but was foiled by the Joker's deviousness. Poor, poor writing for a "great" movie.

2. Dictionary.com on Deus Ex Machina: "any artificial or improbable device resolving the difficulties of a plot." Yeah, I think that pretty much sums it up.

3. I actually don't think it's made clear the Joker's been caught. No one mentions him after Heath Ledger's last scene, so what happened to him? Was he hauled away in a cop car? Put in Arkham Asylum? Outfox the SWAT team and run away? It's not a major point, but taken in concert with the other problems of the film it rankled me.

I pretty much agree with what you're stating. The third act is really flawed to an otherwise very good movie. It's because of that third act that I can't really watch The Dark Knight on multiple viewings -- it's anticlimactic and boring compared to the rest of the film and with so many holes. I still don't believe in Dent's sudden fall into madness, it seemed far too rushed and not in line with common sense on his part. A let down at best, IMO. Spot-on reasoning, JamesKunz. If the third film can solve some of these issues, then maybe I'll think higher of this one. I love the overall ending to the film, it's quite poetic, but that third act really detracts. It didn't need a tight ending, but there needed to be SOME sense of closure to a film with a very thin plot other than Gordon saying the title of the film.

Nolan deserved a nomination for direction when it came to the style, atmosphere, and acting, but a big nay to the film for best picture/screenplay.

It's a solid film, but imho it wasn't even the best film that year dealing with

Haven't seen The Sea Inside yet so I can't comment.

Anybody else think Munich was a better movie than Crash or Brokeback Mountain?

Yeah, though I think all three films are overrated to some degree, and Munich's lousy ending drags it down a notch.

Thought it was better than Crash but I seriously dislike that film. I thought Munich was pretty ordinary **.5 compared to Brokeback Mountain ***.5.

/raises hand

I like all three of those, but I prefer Munich by some margin.

Put me down, too. "Munich" was my favorite film of '05 and is pretty much Spielberg's only film to date that's completely devoid of sentimentality.

I love everything about Spielberg except his sentimentality.
...guess I should check out Munich--never seen it.

Personally, my favorite movie of 2005 wasn't even nominated. And that would be Ron Howard's Cinderella Man. Russell Crowe should have been nominated for an oscar as well. Incredible performance in an incredible movie.

Munich is Spielberg's best film and one of the best of the decades in my opinion. I never understood the hate it received on this forum.

This forum wasn't around in 2005. And I don't know about any hate that it got. Pretty much everyone loved it.

A lot of the "hate" I hear about Munich concerns the sex scene cut with the massacre at Fürstenfeldbruck, which I admit is a pretty "out there" scene. From the perspective of the film it makes sense--Avner can't even enjoy making love with his wife because he's so consumed with the Munich atrocities--but I can understand why people have problems with it.

Yeah I certainly Spielberg was trying to do with that scene, but to me it just seemed like he was trying too hard to be disturbing and the whole scene just came across as cheap and exploitive and it just felt like it belonged in a different movie.

Look at topics discussing James's top 100 or Spielberg. There are a couple others too.