Why So Serious?

FINALLY saw The Dark Knight this past weekend (holding out for a fabulous movie-going partner = well worth the wait!)

First of all hands down the best Batman movie ever. It makes George Clooney as batman look lamer then ever. It was gritty and raw, witty and comical but with a deep message and some of the finest performances from this cast ever....(granted Christian Bale has few other good roles to compare with but we'll take it.)
Aaron Eckhart was a surprise in this piece....I adore his acting but he took it to a new level and showed his amazingly underrated versatility throughout the 2.5 hours of the piece. His boyish charm makes you swoon in the first half and then once they rescue him with the screaming and ugh just breaks my heart and scared the shit out of me.
Maggie Gyllenhal...thank god they gave this woman a new starting role in a big-budget flick because her talent has been long-overdue for some widespread recognition. Unfortunately Rachel meets an unfortunate demise so hopefully some other great franchise will pick her up because she is so saucy and I love her.
Morgan Freeman - any movie is automatically 20 times better if you simply put Morgan Freeman in it. Enough said.
Michael Cain - I enjoy him as Alfred, he gives him this great back story almost accidentally. Plus the whole scene where him and Batman are walking out of their makeshift Batcave as the lights go out is perhaps the most visually appealing section of the entire piece
Heath Ledger - I mean what else can you say that hasn't already been said. This is the performance of an unfortunately short lifetime. Just the voice and cackle alone could have sent him into a new realm but with all of his work he is not content on making it new but putting it in an untouchable sphere. The new look of the Joker. The eerie and constant licking of the lips. The fact that he has almost no back story because he is constantly saying different things about the scars and the opening sequence just shows that he is the man wanting to "see the world burn". He's funny (nurses outfit = genius), scary as all else and its just one of the scariest villains because he just seems in his own head. Also there is some heavy irony that they just leave the Joker hanging out over the building.....leaving us hanging since there will never be another Joker.

So 2.5 hours is a liiiiitle long but you don't really notice it until you get up and your bones are so weary from sitting in the movie theatre seats not because of boredom. There are great surprises, great quips and great action sequences. Plus with all those little surprises there is a great underlying look at anarchy, control and human nature which personally I find incredibly interesting in modern times. It'll be difficult to follow this one up especially with all of the real life drama surrounding it and the fact they almost made perfection for the series....as we've seen with many other super hero movies the more you make the worse they get (hellllooo Spider man THREE....gross). Lets just enjoy how darkly twisted The Dark Knight was.