Deep, Dark, Compelling, The Dark Knight transcends a genre.

Rating: 10/10 (18 July 2008)

so yes i had a ticket to last night's midnight showing of christopher nolan's second installment in his batman franchise, with Christian bale playing the caped crusader for this second go round. I don't have to tell you how much i had been anticipating this movie and from when the lights dimmed and then when they came back on, my head was spinning.
The storyline isn't quite so linear, while still keeping a chain of events it kind of hops around a bit, it can be distracting a bit to a viewer who isn't familiar with nolan's camera work and storytelling, but this one's quite good, while we have characters who teeter on that line of black and white, we have others who completely cross over and end up smudging the lines until there is only grey. The story is captivating, intriguing, and keeps you guessing, it was certainly worth the 3 year wait.
The acting well i think it can and will be said that Heath Ledger's performance is nothing short of legendary, really and it's not his transformation though impressive, it's how he completely engulf's the character, he isn't some actor playing a part he is the joker, he eat, sleeps, and breathes madness and anarchy, a truly truly brilliant and very scary performance. Driven by the mantra of just wanting to "watch the world burn" his acts don't have reason, they are just to cause panic. Heath Ledger weather he died or not needs to be nominated for a best actor or best supporting actor award at next years Oscars, it's that important, it's that good. What a way to go out, and what a performance, on the other side there's newcomer aaron eckhart who gave a pretty notable and strong performance as D.A. Harvey Dent, really, and then does a nice job of his transformation into two face, a very notworthy performance. Christian Bale gave his always well acted performance but was obviously overshadowed by ledger and eckhart which i guess was to be expected, batman nor bruce wayne are very loud, obvious, or emotionally vibrant characters, so it's easy to see why his performance wasn't the strongest. All of the supporting players, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Maggie Gyllenhall, and Eric Roberts all gave expected performances, nothing out of the ordinary and as always Gary Oldman shines once again in a very well done character acting role as Comissioner Jim Gordon.
The direction of the film was so paramount to it's feel and how good it really was, Christopher Nolan is one of the greatest directors of our time and really shows it in this one, weather it's the opening bank robbery scene or showing batman gliding over hong kong, he really knows no ends to camera angles and getting the most out of his actors.
Overall the movie is honestly without being biased one of the best movies i've ever seen, it engrosses the viewer into a world not all that different from ours, a world with a single sliver of hope, and batman is that hope. It's so important the message of staying the course no matter the cost, the integrity of batman/bruce wayne through people dying, nearly wavers, and nearly crosses that line. The Joker/Batman showdown is honestly a really great battle of the psycology of both characters, this is most likely the most complex theme and element of this movie and both characters pull it off so well. I can't express my own personal satisfaction of how this movie turned out, it's not only a great superhero film, it's just a great film. It transcends genre's and is just a very well done film, great acting, directing, storyline that is engrossing, some funny dialouge with the joker, and yes he's funny in a sick silly way, As a whole this movie is as good as it could possibly hope to be. A well done film and a film that deserves all the accolades it has received and is yet to receive.
10/10.