My friend R and I have been dialoguing about the new Batman today, as he wrote a review of it here:

http://www.stlbeacon.org/blogs/lens/the_genre_that_wouldn_t_die

(AFTER the review about "Mamma Mia!" for which I teased him about mercilessly. ) At any rate, we didn't seem to agree too well about some salient points, but I'll spare you all the dialogue since it contains spoilers. Suffice it to say I feel that Batman's characterand purpose are clearer than ever at the end of the movie, whereas he feels it's somewhat vague. My argument is based on these two pieces of The Dark Knight series of the DC Comic:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Batman/Alan-Moore/e/9781401216672/?itm=2

and

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Batman/Grant-Morrison/e/9781401204259/?itm=1

Those take a decidedly different tack than your regular Batman fare: they all deal with how Batman came to be, and what he copes with and feature the Joker prominently, as well as a few other villians ( one of whom was eventually made in this movie).
All the villians, as well as the B-man himself are sort of up for a full psych eval, and while Batman always passes, he often skates by on a "Observe Further" note in his chart, so to speak, which is how the script is written. And the Joker, of course, is utterly sick, beyond comprehension, and loves to set up twisted situations and toy with Batman's internal conflict endlessly.

And my argument is that his conflict and end decisions are well within character and aren't quite the confused cop-out R seems to opine.

Anyway, lest we get too full of ourselves with this debate, I offer this: an old SNL clip I fell in love with about a year ago which seems to be appropos in light of recent discussions:

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/play.shtml?mea=227152

Just FYI: it has some gratuitous slapstick violence at the end, which may or may not be amusing to you. I know several of my friends and I almost peed ourselves laughing at it, but to be fair, we are fairly twisted people.

Being a superhero is a tougher job than Marvel makes it out to be. :)