Brilliant...but you already knew that.

Rating: 10/10 (2 September 2008)

After seeing this movie for the fifth time I actually decided it was high time I wrote a review. Now, to be completely honest with you dear readers, this may be a bit biased, as I am and always have been a sucker for superheroes (and Christian Bale). However, I firmly believe this movie deserves all of the stellar reviews and ratings it was received. Shall we break it down? First of all, the acting was wondrous. Heath Ledger, rest his soul, was truly frightening as the Joker. Now, I know of a few people who say that anyone could slap on some makeup and pretend to be crazy, but I strongly disagree. Heath was given little to no backstory to work with, but he still made his character work. I think any actor would be proud to have such an accomplishment under their belt. He gave a truly spectacular performance. Christian Bale was good. That's about it. He was better as Bruce Wayne than as Batman and I liked him better in Batman Begins. Plus, what was with that awful voice? I'm going to go ahead and say that Christopher Nolan made him do it, just to make myself feel better. It was seriously gross. Okay, loved Gary Oldman as Gordon. There's just something so lovable he brings to the character. Caine was super as Alfred and provided some very nice one-liners and was a good voice of reason for Bale. Eckhart was decent for the most part, but no one else really stood out to me.
The music was great, even better than Batman Begins. The writing was fantastic...mostly. A lot of great lines for the Joker and a really interesting plot, especially with the introduction of Two-Face. I think that the writers provided a lot of insight into the human condition and presented it in a format that was both serious and entertaining. I especially enjoyed the scene with the boats. However, I feel there was too much of a gap between Begins and TDK, like the writers were anxious to get the story on with, without explaining how things got tied up between the films. For example, the rounding up of Scarecrow and his 'thugs from Arkham' was too brief. Plus, did Batman and the Joker meet before this film? I mean, at the end of Begins Batman told Gordon he was going to 'check it out' So what happened? Oh well, maybe I'm just one of those people who hates unanswered questions.
Overall, one of the best movies I've seen in the past five years and definitely the best movie I've seen in 2008. Followed very closely by Ironman =]