Good film

Rating: 7/10 (22 July 2008)

I've never read any Batman comics, I only saw the films and few episodes from the excellent animated series when I was about 10. Batman '89 is still one of my favorite movies (mainly because of emotional reasons), along with Batman Begins which was a very good movie too. I was really hyped about The Dark Knight and like Batman Begins, it is a very, very good movie, though not the best. Let's start with the cons first.
CONS Two and a half hours were a bit long for me, they could have done it in 2 hours and it still would have had this same resonance with the audiences IMO. Two unnecessary story lines: Mr. Reese and Hongkong, especially Hongkong. It was a nice little sequence, but not too important.
Batman's voice: Too much, I almost laughed.
Scarecrow: the character deserved so much more than what he finally got, I hope he'll be back for the third ride. He was a real threat to Batman in the first movie.
Rachel: now I believe it was the character itself all along, not Katie Holmes. She simply didn't work, I'm kinda glad she's out.
Music: most of the time it was excellent, but it annoyed the hell out of me in some places.
PROS Greatly crafted story, full of twists and turns, though I felt a definite anti-climax during the ending sequences. A wanted a bigger showdown between the Batman and the Joker, I guess the writers wanted to save that for another movie.
Christian Bale's Batman: apart from his growling voice, very, very good like in Batman Begins, though I think he should have got more screen time.
Aaron Eckhart's Harvey/Two-Face: the real steal of the show, he was bloody brilliant. I hope he'll also be back for the third movie as the main baddie, his Two-Face was very threatening.
Heath Ledger's Joker: I won't go into details, but I guess the greatest compliment I could give him is that I hated the Joker, I couldn't stand this psychopath.
Gary Oldman's Jim Gordon: He was Gary Oldman. Enough said.:) Brilliant and the character was very well written.
Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine were superb as well, so the cast was top-notch.
SUMMARY So, the film was very good, but not great (only in my opinion!!! Fans, don't shoot me!). The Dark Knight is NOT a comic book movie, perhaps that's the reason I'm not as thrilled about it as other people (which DOESN'T mean the film isn't excellent), for me the concept of Batman doesn't really work in the real world as it worked in Burton's fantastic Gotham. But comparisons with Batman '89 are kinda fruitless, the styles are so different, it's impossible for me to decide which is better. Like the Ledger vs. Nicholson debate. Nicholson's Joker worked perfectly in Burton's version as did Ledger's in Nolan's, the two universes could coexist together perfectly.
7 and a half out of 10. I want a third movie right away with Scarecrown and Two-Face (I hope the latter didn't die).:)