The Dark Knight...

Yeah, I own that poster...

So, it's finally here. The Dark Knight is finally here. It's a fan favorite, a box office smash, and a critical darling. However, does it pass this critics test for a good film??

The Dark Knight is a sequel to the solid film, Batman Begins, and sees our hero in a battle for Gotham's streets with two men. A new villain, the Joker, and a new D.A., Harvey Dent. The Joker is the black, Dent is the white (at first glance), and the Caped Crusader is the gray, and this films is about their struggle to bring order, or what they consider order, to this crazy world.

So, as I said in the short intro (I just wanted to get into this), this film is a critical darling, and rightfully so. This is easily the best film I've seen all year, and the best film I've seen since There Will Be Blood. Heath Ledger, I'm just getting this out of the way because he really is the Elephant in the room, is brilliant. Every time that man was on screen, I had a visceral and emotional reaction. Not just that it was Heath, who was taken from us much to early as this film would have LAUNCHED him into the stratosphere, but he is just insane, and it seems like no one can stop him, even our seemingly invincible Knight. He is a psychopath, with a intensely dark view of the world, and is the polar opposite to our brutish hero. He and the bat can't live without each other. The Joker is what Batman would have become had he decided to snap in the years after his parents passed. Batman can't and won't kill Joker for moral reasons, and Joker won't kill Batman as he would have nothing to live for if he did. This relationship is extremely interesting and done brilliantly in Christopher Nolan's new comic book/superhero masterpiece.

The rest of the cast is also pitch perfect. Bale is perfect as our hero, Gary Oldman plays the old veteran cop James Gordon amazingly, and Aaron Eckhart again shows why he is one of the better actors working today, as Harvey Dent. This film is also gorgeous. It is grimy in a dark, polished pallet of blues, oranges, browns, blacks, and grays. The action scenes keep you oriented while still showing the craziness that is trying to fight the Dark Knight, and they look amazing. The story is insanely compelling, and while it didn't have me on the edge of my seat, it had me in a corner, biting my nails. This is a VERY DARK FILM, and is really not a pg 13 flick. Yeah, there's no blood, no real seedy language, and no nudity, but this film is extremely violent, and dark. It's about a man who wants to see the world burn, and for that reason only, he just wants to see it. He has no real motives, other than to show that the world needs to be changed. It's about that man, and our hero, the man who thinks this world still has something to live for. The only real flaw that I can say is that it did lag a little bit in the second act, and it's running time is 2 1/2 hours, and it kind of feels like it. However, as a MASSIVE Batman fan, and a person who thinks he knows his fair share, this film is true to the comics (outside of the origin of Two Face, at least in The Long Halloween, the comics I think these films are based on... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_The_Long_Halloween ).

This is a great film, the best film of the year so far, and one of the most intense films I've seen in a long time. The reason I'm keeping this short, is I want your opinions, and I want to get a discussion going, hopefully with more than one or two people. What do you guys think???

The Dark Knight - 9.5/10

Here is my new top 10 of the year. I've seen some new flicks, so lets update this...

10. Smart People
9. My Blueberry Nights
8. Wanted
7. Iron Man
6. Hellboy 2
5. In Bruges
4. Wall E
3. Funny Games
2. Paranoid Park
1. The Dark Knight

Go see something good!!

***I didn't see this in IMAX, although I am going on Monday, so I will talk about the special, IMAX camera shot scenes then...free tickets!!! THANK YOU CHRIS!!***

WATCHMEN LOOKS BRILLIANT!!!