I'm sure Heath Ledger gives a terrific, Oscar-winning performance in Dark Knight. And I'm confident that the new Batman film delivers an adrenaline rush to keep caped crusader wannabes buzzing all the way back to their batcaves. I expect I'll be on the edge of my seat. But it will be in my living room, when the movie reaches television some Christmas Day, and I'll be edging off the sofa towards the bathroom and an urgent appointment picking sock fluff out of my toenails.

It is terrific, say the reviews. Heath Ledger's Joker: Oscar-winning. And it's so dark and interesting. At which point a klaxon sounds in my head and a warning blares: “Alert! Alert! Dark and interesting film entering cinemas. Do not watch!”

I know how this weekend is going to pan out. I'll be at the swings with the kids, or sipping something refreshing outside the pub, when someone I know will pass. We'll make innocuous chit-chat until they drop a grenade into the conversation. “Hey, we went to see Dark Knight last night. It's a great film. Very dark and edgy.” But hang on a minute. Didn't they say that about the last Batman film? And the one before that. And the one before that. Every time a new one comes out people yadda on about how dark it is, as if dark is the new black. Dark is supposedly complex, messed-up, romantic, intriguing.

Or is dark actually quite dull? I'm tired of messed-up people in films. Moping about, feeling sorry for themselves. It's the Goth's approach to life. They just don't understand that being gloomy doesn't make them interesting.

Come on, Batman. You're a guy in a fetishist's mask, a cloak and the sort of body suit normally only seen on dungeon-dwelling gimps. You shouldn't be taking yourself so seriously. You should be camping it up for all you are worth.

In the wonderful 1960s Batman, sneered at nowadays as a parody, that's what you did. It was what comic book capers should really be about. The problem with comic books now is that they take themselves so seriously when they are second-rate stories drawn by second-rate artists for people who literally - or spiritually - are stuck in musty adolescent bedrooms.

You know the sort. People who try to cultivate their dark and tormented side. Like Gordon Brown. Everyone raved about how dark and brooding and interesting he was. Now it turns out that he is actually dark and dreary; interesting only in as much as we don't know whether he'll last to the next election or not.

Now, if he were to start wearing his underpants on the outside of his trousers, that would be interesting. But not enough to make him a hit at the box office.

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