Superior movie that could have been even better

Rating: 9/10 (5 October 2008)

Saw it last night, digested it overnight, still love it.
I must say I'm slightly irritated by the fact that this movie lived up to it's hype. Although I was expecting nothing less than a masterpiece because of it's rating, the movie did convince me of it's superiority. I was certain that Joker's performance would get few extra stars due to the death of Heath Ledger, but the poor bastard really did in my opinion the best acting of his career. I'm still amazed by his style to deliver such insanity and anarchism in a clever package. And even if Batman got stuck in the shadow of Joker, Bale did a great job just like in Batman Begins.
This said, there were some bits that in my scale took away the one star to make it perfect. Let's start with Maggie Gyllenhaal - not a great choice. I had very little interest in her character, and she just didn't deliver quite as good as I expected.
Another thing that bothered me was the PG-13 rating. On the other hand it's great that kids of that age get to see this fantastic movie, but then again this movie could have been even better without the shaved violence-scenes. At some stages I was a bit disappointed, in example the lack of blood in a violent film like this really bothered me. Only the "BOOM", "KAPOWW", and "SMASH" signs were missing. It just didn't seem realistic enough, especially when people behind this film were aiming for realism.
Bottom line is, that Dark Knight is an excellent film that sacrificed a bit too much to achieve it's current PG-rating.
9/10