A note on suspension of disbelief, from ESPN's Gregg Easterbrook:
The latest Batman installment is a hit, and well-made from a cinematography standpoint, but the Joker character was unrealism carried to an extreme, even by Hollywood's low standards. The Joker has hundreds of obedient, superefficient henchmen, including surgeons and high-ranking police officers, who serve him without question -- even though they know he murders his own henchmen.
Arguable. We see a few policemen that he has the ability to manipulate, the rest are, as we see in the scene with Dent, Batman and the captured thug, apparently unstable psychotics who Bats says the Joker has chosen specifically because they will latch on to the first authority figure they see. The implication I took from cellphone-stomach guy was that the Joker had done it himself. I'm not sure it's ever made public knowledge or mob knowledge that the Joker can kill his lackeys and we only see it with the bank robbery guys from the start.
The Joker knows things no one could possibly know, such as what street the police van carrying Harvey Dent will turn down during a wild chase. (He has henchmen positioned on that street, one of dozens the van might have turned down).
The drivers were told to stop for nobody and nothing, they didn't have time to stop and think 'hmmm, burning truck', yes, to us going underground is a dumb move but when you have split-decision to make a decision how likely are you to make a good one? There weren't 'dozens of choices', presumably his police force contacts fed him the main route and he worked from that. It's not something 'no one could possibly know'.
The Joker can get poison into the police commissioner's private office without anyone suspecting anything.
This one is just silly really. Cleaning staff switch bottles perhaps, or one of the dirty cops is assigned to that detail or maybe it's switched at the point it's bought... Who knows?
City officials make a sudden decision to load several hundred people into ferries; in just a few hours, Joker is able to place thousands of pounds of explosives aboard the ferries without anyone noticing, plus rig devices to take over the ferries' engines.
I did wonder about this one, not that he did it, but when he found the time to organise it. Even accepting that in the general chaos that he created that some of his hoods had the time to do things just so? I think that possibly from the time that the foreign financier guy was dropped off at G.C.P.D. and the Joker killed off the black gangster that he started having access to Mob money and connections and got them to do some of the leg work for him, but it's a stretch. I think the whole thing of trying to convince Harvey that he's just a crazy that reacts to events is < gasp! > a lie, and he's quote capable of sitting down and rationally planning how to do insane things.
Joker is able to move thousands of pounds of explosives into Gotham General Hospital without anyone noticing. Positioning the explosives for the two giant-blast sequences in "The Dark Night" would have required large trucks and a front-loader carrying multiple heavy objects through places crawling with police officers without anyone noticing.
As above. Maybe much less explosive connected to the points in a hospital building that could be used to make a bigger explosion? Again, disguise his hoods as police/firemen storming into the evacuating hospital with 'equipment' to help evacuate it and they could position it for him. You still have the time problem but I don't think it's an impossible supposition.
Joker always knows exactly where everyone he wants to kill is in a huge city (how?);
I don't understand this one. He targets people at their offices or places of residence, going after Harvey at A BIG FUNDRAISER for Harvey Dent isn't an example of telepathy.
he's beaten to a pulp by Batman, yet just minutes later, easily overpowers a huge policeman;
Just as the Batman is able to escape the G.C.P.D. despite being on his last legs at the end of the film. Perhaps the Joker is crazy enough that he simply ignores the beating he gets from Batman? We don't know exactly what happens in the cell before we see him with the policeman as hostage.
Joker steals from the mob, yet no mob soldier simply shoots him.
Pencil! Hand grenades! The black mob guy puts out the contract on the Joker and gets bumped off. The other gangsters then have the problem of what to do about their money and Dent. Maybe they decide to let him go after Dent and then kill him afterwards?
Joker has a bomb sneaked into the jail where he's being held -- somehow he knew in advance what cell he would be in! -- and it blasts open the jail wall, plus kills all the police officers standing around the Joker, but does not hurt him.
The thing about which cell he would be in is irrelevant, he wasn't in a cell at the time. The cell the guy with the bomb in his gut is is also irrelevant, I presume that most police stations have only one block of cells? We also do not know that it kills the policemen around the Joker, if he knows what's coming and they don't, maybe he can brace himself for the blast they aren't expecting? Perhaps it throws them off balance long enough for him to kill them?
I'm not claiming that tDK is the bestest film in the history of everything and certainly there are times in the story when the Joker has to rely on 'movie luck' or The Scriptwriter to help him, but if you want a truly egregious example of that we could talk about the end of the last Harry Potter book and tDK is not THAT bad.