Well Done Nolan and Ledger.

Rating: 10/10 (19 July 2008)

All that I can say is wow. This just might be the best film I've ever seen. I saw it on the day it came out and when I checked on this web site the next day it was already a 9.6 which is needless to say very rare. Who do we have to thank for that? Health Ledger of course. The whole time he was in the film he all ways had that swagger that smooth beautiful motion acting as a lunatic comic book character brought into the flesh. He disappears into the character so good that honestly this is the first time that I've ever been in a movie theater where audience members to the right and to the left of me were like "he's crazy". They said it more than once too. Usually when I go to the theaters I can't even relate to the characters and situations much less write reviews about them.
If your going to do a remake of something that has already been done many times over such as something of the comic book genre it's important to remember a very crucial formula. The comic book is the Bible, the cartoon is the mythology, but the movie is how it actually would have happened. Christopher Nolan understood this concept perfectly. Throughout the film you get the feeling that this is a series of spectacular events dropped in an ordinary world. There's no weird filming technique that distorts color, there's not any obsession on trying to make everything look shiny like there was in Daredevil, and there's no Matrix rip offs (bullet time, dudes doing suspiciously impossible jumps in slow motion). Nolan keeps it real. Are there alterations to the original story? There probably are, the last I heard joker got his scars after Batman knocked him into a tank of acid and that he was the one who really shot Bruce Waynes parents (they created each other). This is not the only story alterations. In the comics Ras Al Gould (if I misspelled that don't trip) was an immortal who found a way to keep young. In Batman Begins it's hinted that a Ras Al Gould immortal is just a titled given to boss ranking members of the League of Shadows the same way that emperor's of Rome accepted the titled "Caesar". Little twists like that might upset comic and cartoon fans, but what they must understand is that when your making a movie adaptation it helps if you include a bit of *realism*.
Most of the time though the biggest reason people don't like works such as this isn't because people know too much of the mythology and the original story but because they know too little. Allow me to explain, (by the way I'm about to get into some spoilers so if you haven't seen this movie yet then please don't get upset if you lose a sense of drama after reading this) there is a part in this movie when it appears that Gordon has been shot and killed, now me being a fan of the cartoon knows that Gordon has always been a prolific instrumental character, in other words a *main* character, and adaptation film makers usually aren't that stupid to kill off key characters so quickly, and as it turns out they weren't Gordon comes back after playing possum just in time to rescue Batman now when they showed his face the audience was confused... no really they were. One said "What?! I thought he died." and some were snickering cause they perceived this as the film makers just doing what ever they could to bring back a character, but me knowing what was going on all I did was smile and nod in approval. Also after it was over I over heard some douche bag saying it was boring. The joker was blowing up everything in sight, shooting people here and there, backstabbing his allies with ease and this man was going to call it boring? What kind of movies does this guy watch? (People in my home town of Salinas aren't exactly known for there brains... never move here... seriously.) What I think confused those people was Batman's overly righteous persona ex. refusal to kill, willingness to take blame, the dialog revolving around concepts of hope, and heroes, and doing good in face of danger. These people are just not familiar with what Batman represents. He's a symbol, he's a symbol of being righteous fighting powerful evil obstacles with his bare hands and coming away the winner. Sometimes it seems that no matter how good a movie is there's always going to be haters out there.