| The Dark Knight (2008) Cast:Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Eric Roberts, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Anthony Michael Hall Batman (Bale) continues to clean up the streets which draws the attention of a new criminal The Joker who turns Gotham City upside down for the sake of anarchy, while Harvey Dent (Eckhart) becomes the white knight of Gotham city, until The Joker turns everything around in this admittedly fairly exellent adaptation which benefits solely from Ledger's brilliant turn. Indeed you take away Ledger and you have no movie. Period. However Heath Ledger is so great, so disturbingly viscous and indeed so good he makes the movie a classic. The movie isn't only worth seeing for the performance but actually worth owning for such. Indeed someone watching A Knight's Tale would never believe such a performance from the same guy. In fact, Ledger is so good he actually is scarier than Freddy Krueger from Nightmare On Elm Street 1, In fact this movie needs to be seen back to back with Brandon Lee as The Crow. In fact, Ledger draws some admitted parallels to Lee, just not in death as Lee and Ledger play characters with very similar personalities and tastes for destruction. Of course the best way to see this movie was in theaters, I did so. Indeed it's one of the best i've seen in theaters. The Dark Knight has a brutal edge, a meaner tone and a heroic bloodshed angle that recalls John Woo back when Woo was a heavyweight talent. In fact, this Batman felt almost identical to a John Woo movie from Hong Kong, with the only difference being that there are more survivors here. The Dark Knight is easily the best Batman movie to date (Which considering the classic 1989 adaptation says a lot) but the truth of the matter is that one is skeptical, because one doubts director Nolan can top such a movie in a sequel. In fact, The Dark Knight is the pinnacle of comic book movies. The Dark Knight is worth seeing not for the brutal tone or suspenseful action sequences, but merely for Ledger. Seriously, you haven't seen a psychotic villain until you see his Joker. In fact, the movie is guaranteed to give kids nightmares and as it stands it might even give the more squeamish person nightmares. Indeed, I have a will of iron, but even I was taken aback by the sequences in which The Joker tortures an Imitation Batman. It's a classic that will go down in history. D.Christopher Nolan**** |