The Dark Knight sucked!!…. Nah, I’m just kidding.  I’ll come right out and say it, The Dark Knight is the best comic book movie that has ever been made and it has scored the position of my personal favorite movie of the summer and probably the year.  This review isn’t actually going to be a review but more of a couple of quick comments about the film.  Why, you ask?  Because this movie is generally loved by everyone and there’s thousands of positive reviews all over the net, so why even bother writing a normal review when you can read tons of them online.  I think the only way to go about this is just to be simple and give a few comments about The Dark Knight.  Once again director Christopher Nolan and actor Christian Bale re-team to create another Batman film entitled The Dark Knight.  However there is a big problem; Batman is about to face the most compelling villain in film history, The Joker played by the late Heath Ledger.

Below I’m going to list several bullet points for things that I loved and things that I dislike, just to keep it short; Likes:

• Heath Ledger is amazing as The Joker.  I’d go so far to say that he’s become the best on screen villain I’ve ever seen.  There is only so far you can go with a PG-13 film when it comes to violence but what makes The Joker so compelling is the psychology behind the character.  Joker is simply insane but is also extremely intelligent.  He cares for nothing except, as Alfred says, “to watch the world burn.”  It’s unusual for summer blockbusters to create Academy Award contenders but I’m really convinced that Heath Ledger deserves a nomination.  People who haven’t seen The Dark Knight might say, just because Ledger died he should get a nod, but Ledger legitimately deserves it.
• All of the acclaim may be going towards Ledger’s performance but you can’t forget that The Batman would be nothing without Christian Bale.  Once again Bale proves that he’s one of the best actors today.  However I do have one little criticism, but I’ll save that for later.
• I’m thrilled that Gary Oldman as Jim Gordan had a lot to do in this movie.  The Dark Knight doesn’t just see Batman involved in the action, it also sees Jim Gordan involvement largely throughout the story.  Also, Oldman’s performance is fantastic.
• Aaron Eckhart joins the cast as Harvey Dent who eventually becomes Two-Face.  This is another fantastic performance that leads to a great transition from Dent to Two-Face but unfortunately wrapped up in a not so satisfying way, more on that later.
• Maggie Gyllenhaal replaces Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes and with that it’s safe to say that Gyllenhaal’s performance is tremendously better.
• One of my favorite scenes in The Dark Knight is Batman and The Joker in a prison cell.  I’m not going to give it away but for those of you who have seen it, which is probably everyone, you’ll know what scene I’m talking about.
• As for everything else; Action and set pieces, story, drama and violence ALL solid.

Dislikes:

• The single largest issue I have with Dark Knight is the resolution of Two-Face.  The transition was very good and the Hospital scene with Joker was amazing but I have to say that I think Two-Face was a wasted villain.  Most of the scenes with Two-Face could have set up a third film.  [SPOILERS] I don’t know why Two-Face was killed in the end but some may argue that he was just knocked out [END SPOILERS]  I feel because of that they wasted such a great actor and character.  I will admit that in a way it’s also good because it leaves a 3rd film for another villain but it is still would have been great if we had a full film on just Two-Face.
• This isn’t a big problem was it just me or was Bale’s Batman voice distracting?  On occasion, especially towards the end the Batman voice is just… too much.
• Oh yea, The Dark Knight is also kind of long, but that didn’t really bother me that much. I loved every minute of it.

Overall I love this movie and I say it’s the best comic book movie that has ever been made.  It raised the bar for comic book films and I doubt anyone is going to match it for a very long time.  The only movie that has a chance to be better than The Dark Knight is Batman 3.  The Dark Knight has an Oscar contending performance from Heath Ledger, awesome action, deep drama and pushes the limit for a PG-13 film because of how sick The Joker is.  In my book I give The Dark Knight a 9 out of 10.

-Phil