None of those words do justice to the masterpiece I viewed this past Saturday.
I'm not Ebert or Roeper, so I won't blather on about the storylines and plot twists. There is less than no need for that sort of thing. But I will say that I loved this movie so much. By far my favorite movie of the year. It was also by far my favorite Batman movie ever (knocking Batman Begins to number 2). Christian Bale is a fantastic Batman. The difference between him and say, Val Kilmer or George Clooney is that they were pretty good Bruce Waynes, but they were not good Batmans. Keaton was a better Batman than he was Bruce Wayne, I thought. But Bale pulls off both parts of the character very well.
And Morgan Freeman, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, and Gary Oldman played their roles so well. And Maggie Gyllenhaal didn't annoy me the way Katie Holmes did as Rachel.
But, of course, the best performance was from Heath Ledger. He amazed me, like he did most others. That is a legendary performance. That should be required viewing in acting classes. He made the role of The Joker his bitch. At no point did I ever think to myself - 'that's Heath Ledger playing The Joker'. It's so cliché to say that he 'became' the role, but he truly did. For those 2 and a half hours, Heath Ledger completely disappeared. He simply ceased to exist. It's a damn shame that he's not around to see the reaction his performance is receiving. Well, not around to live it anyway, I like to believe he is seeing it, somehow. But damn, what a way to go.
'The Dark Knight' is, IMO, the greatest movie based on a comic book ever made. I won't say it's the best 'superhero' movie, because I don't believe he is one. I think that's a large part of the point of Batman. He's human, not super-human. That's not at all a slight against him, as I much prefer Batman to Superman or Spiderman.
Regardless, any directors or studio execs who were planning on making an action movie or comic book movie of any kind in the near future - I hope you were taking notes.
I haven't yet gone back to see it a second time, but I most likely will. And I'll certainly be buying the DVD as soon as it comes out. That's a piece of cinematic history that I have to own.
For those of you out there who haven't seen it yet - what are you waiting for? I've heard people say it's not their 'thing'. IMO, if you like good movies - it's totally your 'thing'.
