SPOILER ALERT:




Well I thought it was one of the greatest movies in the past 5-8 years. It was freaking awesome.

I was expecting Ledger's acting to be over praised for obvious reason but all that praise is well deserved, he portrayed an excellent joker that rivals and possibly surpasses Jack Nicholson's performance. As some of you may recall, I was very aprehensive of the Joker's new 'unkept/dirty' look but Ledger's performance was spot on and the look no longer bothered me when matched to his behaviour and Ideology.

Plot wise? It was awesome, it wasn't a typical 'bad guys start winning and then the good guy kicks their asses at the end' Hollywood super hero plot. It was dark and nasty and despite the unrealistic nature of Batman and his gadgets, the world he inhabited was eerily realistic as it was all about studying human nature and behaviour in extreme circumstances.

Two Face was also excellently done, I first thought that they were setting up Harvey Dent for the next movie but it all happened within the plot of this movie and provided an excellent metaphor on how the greatest of all can also fall down. There was also a lot of emphasis on the power of symbolism which was nice, definitely not a movie for only sheep to enjoy.

Another thing that keeps Dark Knight above most other super hero movies (or movies in general) is that the good guy doesn't really win at the end and the conclusion is rather 'gray' with both the bad guy and the good guy accomplishing defining victories and just canceling each other out but in my view, the Joker won because what happened to Harvey actually made his ideological point.

Now the trick is how will they be able to have the Joker in the next movie? He made such a massive impact in this movie for him to just be locked up somewhere and remain there. The Joker in Dark Knight stopped been a human and was basically a force of chaos so it doesn't fit that by the next movie such an unstoppable force be left sitting down in a cell.

Ledger's characterisation and performance of the joker was very unique, it will be very hard to find an actor able to pull it off without him seeming like 'another joker'.

Overall: Awesome movie, first movie in several years that had me walking out of the cinema with a sense of awe like I had when watching 80s and 90s movies.