The Dark Knight

Finally had a chance to watch Dark Knight this evening after having to endure days of chatter on Twitter about it. “Oh man, it was so awesome!” I’d hear. “Best movie EVER!” one person declared. I died inside with each tweet, little by little.

So today I decided to get my butt over to the theater and check it out myself, and I must agree with the Twittersphere; this movie rocked. The action scenes were top notch, there was some wicked new gadgets introduced (city-wide sonar for bat vision? so cool.) and the acting, as predicted, was just fantastic, if not a bit creepy given Ledger’s untimely death.

Christian Bale as Batman.

I think my only minor gripe with the film was it’s lack of Bruce Wayne screen time. Christian Bale has long been one of my favorite actors, so I was expecting to see more lines from him than there were. Bale ends up spending most of the film in the costume, which is great, but you really fail to experience his acting ability when he gets so few lines behind the mask. I thought Wayne was far more interesting in the first film in that regard.

Ledger, as I think everyone expected, proved himself to be an outstanding Joker. He really nailed the role, and delivered a fantastic, creepy experience. It’s a true pity we won’t have an opportunity to see him reprise the role.

Two-Face was pretty interesting, though I found Eckhart’s villainous side at the end to be the low point of the film. To me, it came off feeling a bit rushed. Two-Face was always a fascinating character to me in the Batman universe, and given the long back story he and Batman had in the traditional lineage I was surprised to see the rebooted movie’s different look at the once-friend-now-adversaries. Personally? I would have liked to have seen them introduce Two-Face in this film, perhaps show his criminal side’s origins at the finale, and then allow for part of the next film to close things up. As it is I wasn’t very satisfied with Two-Face or his brief involvement in the story.

The late Heath Ledger as The Joker.

In any event, my complaints are very minor, and I can find little fault with any aspect of the film. Definitely a worthy sequel to Batman Begins, and in many ways I think it even raised the bar a notch.

Rating: ★★★★½ Almost perfect, but I think they could have spent a little more time developing Two Face and Wayne’s relationship.

So, what did you think?

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