This was incredibly gripping. It had me hooked for the full 2.5 hours. The story is very well crafted, with so many twists and turns; I completely bought into it. Relentless intensity.
Heath Ledger's joker is brilliant; easily his best performance. He's one of the most chilling villains to be filmed in a long time, not just a comic book bad guy but a true, multi layered psychopath. I love that they made the Joker genuinely clever; he totally outwitted Batman and the police (the escape from prison was ingenious and the magic trick with the pen... how cool was that?!). What's more, I liked it that Batman did not understand the Joker, that he underestimated him. There was no sense of inevitability that Batman was going to come out on top; this was never the case in Tim Burton's Batman (which I also like).
The corruption and general seediness of Gotham adds a really interesting dimension to these new Batman films (obviously it's in all the films but explored much further in the latest ones). It really feels like a crime drama/thriller more than a superhero movie. It actually reminded me a lot of Heat.
One thing that wasn't so good: Batman takes a back seat in this one. They undid a lot of the really interesting character development that occurred in Batman Begins, by having him seemingly go through the motions. Another mild criticism I had was that the fall of Harvey Dent/Two-Face into evil seemed very rushed. I found it hard to believe that would happen so suddenly. Perhaps they could have extended it into the next film? Aaron Eckhart was very good though, and I was glad to see Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman get more screen time in this one. I think Christopher Nolan is the perfect director for these films; he's such an enigmatic storyteller and he handles action sequences so well. Can't wait for the next one!
4 stars
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