Mark's The Dark Knight Review!

Let me just say this...."WOW!"

This movie was simply amazing...and nothing short of a masterpiece. Clearly one of the best movies of all time, in my opinion of course. There are no flaws in this movie. None. Not the acting, not the suspense, action, or dialog. Everything is there.

I'll start with the acting....and with Christian Bale, our caped crusader. The character he plays, Bruce Wayne, is so flawed it's a miracle he doesn't shoot himself midway through the movie. He gets faced with every moral dilemma known to man in this movie, and Bale handles it with ease. It's his finest career achievement to date and that's saying a lot...he's done great works such as American Psycho and High Times...both show his acting prowess. He takes it beyond in this film...he goes the extra mile to make sure that people know him as BATMAN!

Next up is Heath Ledger. Now I know everyone has read early reviews on how great he portrayed the Joker and how engulfed he became, that he literally transformed himself into this mass murdering psycho. Well, he did better than that. He gave us one film's greatest characters. He brought the Joker so much to life that I really could not recognize that it was Ledger acting as the Joker. It's almost surreal to think that Ledger's last performance was one of the greatest ever created on screen. One person can not become someone else...if I didn't know any better I would have thought that Ledger had schizophrenia, he was THAT GOOD!
Way to go out on top Heath.

Then we have Mr. Aaron Eckhart, who played district attorney Harvey Dent. Without a doubt it was Eckhart's best performance of his career, and rightfully so. He played the part with passion and he held his own as far as screen time. Let me just clarify, Christian Bale as Batman was the star of the movie, but it wasn't about that. It was about Ledger and Eckhart bringing their villains to life. Making Tommy Lee Jone's Two-Face and Jack Nicholson's Joker to shame...and that pains me to say that about Nicholson's Joker, who I thought was spot on and should have gotten an oscar for. Eckhart doesn't stop at just giving a great performance...he to becomes his character. He became Harvey Dent, and I found myself having compasion for his character. The fact that he loves Rachel Dawes so much and doesn't know that Bruce Wayne/Batman love her as well just adds to the great acting that is portrayed.

Maggie Gyllenhal is simply superb as well...even though...and I won't spoil it...she doesn't have as big of a role as you might think. She replaces Katie Holmes character, Rachel Dawes in the movie, and she's ten times the actress that Holmes is...I even think she's more attractive but in a subtle way. She convinced me that she loved both men...Bruce and Harvey...and truly didn't know what to do about it.

Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are excellent in this movie, even though they both play a very small role. Morgan Freeman's screen time is cut down much more than in Batman Begins...but it's necessary. Two of Hollywood's best actors with limited screen time giving some of the best performances of the movie...is simply amazing.

I forgot to mention Gary Oldman who engulfed his character, Police Commissioner Jim Gordon. He plays the hard nosed cop who is out for all the evil that is lurking in Gotham and he needs the help of Harvey Dent and Batman. Oldman plays a very significant role in the movie as he steals scenes away from Bale and Eckhart at times.

The plot and the story were spot on...and it's not exactly a sequel to Batman Begins, but more of a continuation...kindof like the Lord of the Rings triology just ended, except BB and TDK had endings. If that made sense...lol.

This is one of the best film's of all time...and that's saying a lot because there are A LOT of great movies out there. This one is different though. It's Godfather II great...maybe even better. It's actually eerily similar.

Go see this movie now....like right this minute...you will not want to be the one to say that you didn't go see this movie on it's opening weekend. By the time you do go see it finally, everyone will have already talked about how GREAT it was.