My honest review

Rating: 10/10 (18 July 2008)

This is NOT a superhero movie. it's NOT a comic book movie. this is a statement about the time which we live in, and how we want to see ourselves, what we could see ourselves as, and ultimately the dangers of what we can become... put simply: ledger does for the role of joker what Chris reeves did for superman. this is the new gold standard and could potentially forever change joker's image in pop culture. it will be almost impossible for anybody to do a plausible follow-up-- be it illustrated, live action, or animated-- that will be as effective as this one... this performance makes Nicholson's "darker" joker of 1989-- a performance raved about by bob Kane himself-- as campy-looking as Caesar Romero's joker of the 1960's TV show. ledger's character-portrayal could be called by any other name, put it in any other movie, and it would be the talk of Hollywood as one of the scariest characters in recent memory.
never mind the fact that in this movie, everything and everyone is the star getting equal screen time, including batman, joker, Harvey dent-- in a poetically brilliant portrayal by eckhardt-- Gotham city, Jim Gordon, Lucius fox, and all the tertiary characters and pyrotechnics..... never mind the basic storytelling flaws (among them characters "disappear" while other characters are still, technically, looking in their direction) and completely illogical time lines.... never mind that we still don't get an accurate explanation as to how any of batman's villains convince and recruit their hired thugs to devotedly do their bidding... never mind anything and everything that you would normally want to nit-pick. this film's main flaw is that it's TOO good. there was always a secret joy for fans in being unsatisfied, always complaining how the director never got this or that just right-- it always gave us, the audience, a reason to want and demand more attempts.... we always seemed to love the filmmakers' efforts more than the product given to us. but now that the joy of fan-kingdom complaining has been robbed from us, all i can say is: "thanks!!!!!!" go see it-- you'll be MORE than glad you did..... Must watch again