"It's not sealed"

Rating: Null/10 (23 July 2008)

Is a throw-away line spoken mid-way by Rachel Dawes to Alfred regarding the envelope containing her 'Dear John' letter to Master Wayne. More importantly, it forebodes the following sequence when the Joker is arrested and jailed in a fortress that's "not sealed." I digress, while Heath Ledger is everything everyone and their mother has written about him this is really Aaron Eckhart's movie. His Harvey Dent is the center of the gathering storm... the object of the Joker & Batman's duel is for Dent's soul... and in turn that of Gotham City. Director Nolan sets up the end nicely for the follow-up film, but better over-all editing would have gotten us (the audience) there sooner. This film is too long. For it's genre (action/adventure) it's brilliant, those action sequences blow us away, but Nolan should have trimmed some story fat. I have two quibbles: what was that cameo w/ Scarecrow all about? Couldn't the Nolan brothers have written a scene to remove him from the film that involved the Joker? Also, as a minority Nolan relegates the few minorities to baddies (Det. Ramirez, the Asian accountant) to token cameos (the Mayor).