The Best Movie Of 2008

Rating: 10/10 (30 August 2008)

I know giving The Dark Knight a perfect ten might not be highly original,but this film really does deserve it.Having said that there are a couple of things that bothered slightly but they weren't enough to really have an impact on my score.But more on those things a bit later i'll start with the good things.First off the cinematography is a big step up from the first film,more in the fight scenes than anything else,I know Christopher Nolan had intended the scenes to be hard to see because we were seeing Batman fight from the perspective of the criminals but it never really sat well with me only because i'm just not a fan at that kind of thing in the slightest,Also with such an unknown fighting style I really wanted to see how it worked,well know Christopher has decided to fix that and pans along with the action rather than cutting all over the place.Next up is the music and it's wonderful, it perfectly captures the mood and helps tie you with the characters emotions,I really love the creepy ticking/scraping sound at the beginning logos.The writing for this film is set to go down with the best scripts in cinema history,with so much happening it would have been easy to fall into the trap of it not making any sense at all or trying to fit so much in that it got boring,but that's not the case,I was always interested in what was going to happen next and everything was written so well that i was never confused as to what was happening.Now the acting,I don't think there was one person in this film who didn't do a great job,Christian Bale was excellent as Bruce Wayne/Batman,at many points in this film you see the internal struggle that's happening inside him and at other times complete hopelessness,like he just doesn't know what to do,Aaron Eckhart gives Harvey Dent a real purpose and creates a very good, honest, likable character who you really feel sorry for when he eventually falls,whats more I could understand what his pain was and why he was doing the bad things he ended up doing.Maggie Gylannhaal is just a hell of a better actress than Katie Holmes will ever be,Maggie gives Rachel soul and a reason for being,all Katie Holmes gave was this smarmy little smirk on her face that I just wanted to smack off.Micheal Caine,Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman all gave their usual great performances,but the one everyone's talking about is Heath.There's not much to say that hasn't already been said by every other person on the planet so i'll say that it's all true,no performance i've seen has had this impact on me,i'll never forget it.One of the things that really make the Joker work for me personally is the way he is always licking his lips,i really works in two ways,one is it's like a tick he has just because he's crazy and second if I have those scars around my mouth i'd probably feel them with my tongue constantly too.So there was really only two things that bothered me and that was that I didn't feel the city was the same,obviously going from a giant set to filming in Chicago it will look different,but it just seemed to go from this giant dark Gothic city with things overhanging everywhere to.....well Chicago.Last but not least I think the Scarcrow was wasted in this film,it felt too much like they were just trying to get him out the way so we wouldn't have to worry about him,they could have just not put him in and it would've done well to save him as the enemy if they chose make another film,but I guess they needed a reason to introduce the Batman copycats.This is the best movie you will see this year,if there's anyone left that hasn't seen it see it at the movies at least once,because it just won't be the same on DVD.