Heath Ledger - a 10, the movie a 7

Rating: 8/10 (20 July 2008)

I gave the first Christian Bale Batman movie a 9 and was looking forward to at least as good a film with the second installment. Heath Ledger gave an astounding performance, worthy of at least an Oscar Nomination. I can't remember sitting in a theater where everyone was dead still. No cell phones, no popcorn-munching, just everyone mesmerized by Heath's performance. It is my personal favorite movie performance of all time. That being said, the rest of the movie was a minor disappointment. Christian, Morgan, Michael and Gary gave very good performances, the rest - Maggie, Aaron, Eric - were superfluous roles and I thought detracted from the film. I enjoyed the serious dark nature of the film, and continue to have high hopes for the future films. This film was just too long and muddled, and should have focused on the Batman and Joker characters. Then you would have had 10.