The Joke is on Me

Spoiler alert: Small amounts of spoiler for The Dark Knight.

It was about three years ago when me and my friends were first astounded by Batman Begins.
It had managed to take a dieing movie franchise and turn it completely around and turn it into an excellent piece of film. Eagerly snapping up every clue to a sequel we could we were again surprised at the ending scene in which James Gordon sets Batman upon the Joker case. " They want to redo The Joker?"we asked each other in disbelief. "But Jack Nicholson is The Joker, who could possibly live up to his standard!" Alas many months ago we found our selves in an irritated disbelief once again as they began letting out whom they had picked for what roles in the eagerly awaited sequel. "Heath Ledger!?" we asked out loud in disgruntled voices, how in the world was a actor who had thus far made his name by mockeries of medieval history , reinterpreting Shakespeare , and being a cowboy exploring his homosexuality (sadly with out pudding). supposed to play debatable the most evil, flavorful, and beloved villain in the whole DC universe (if not the entirety of all comics). Not only that but how is he supposed to live up to the expectations set forth by the last man to play the Joker! With all out skepticism firmly in place we knew that the young man had talent and that he did in fact have a small chance at succeeding in such a demanding role, basically our only hope was that he did not "mess it up to badly."

The months passed and we found our selves with tasty tidbits here and there, such as a side shot of the Joker's makeup or a glimpse of the Bat Bike, we were becoming both more and more excited and more and more skeptical at the same time. Standards are a odd little things we posses, have you ever notices how sequels seem to suck 90 % of the time? It is because we are consistently comparing them to the original in every aspect, after all I'm sure you have herd the phrase "It was okay but no where near as good as the original" The Dark Knight could have very well have been ruined for us because of our expectations. We could have built them up so impossibly high that no movie ever made could have surpassed them. In fact we did, the standards were so astronomically high that we even recognized it and came to worrisome conclusion that Batman Begins had in fact set its bar to high.

Armed with a prior knowledge of the characters, of the actors, as well as our own expectation level we filed into the theater last Thursday with the thought that we would most likely be disappointed in this movie. And it looks like the joke was on us. The Dark Knight has again risen the proverbial bar far past its predecessor. It is the BEST Batman movie to date, It is the BEST movie this year, it is the BEST comic book movie to date, and as far as this author is concerned it enters the highly debatable field of one of the GREATEST movies of all time. High praise, but as I have yet to find a single person who did not at least like the movie if not love it i think it deserves it. But to what dose this movie owe its greatness? All of the actors did a great job in their respective parts, and I'm sure the director had a small hand in it as well :: winks::, but one person stands out beyond all the others in this cinematic masterpiece, one person is what bumped this movie from great to an almost indescribable level of amazing. Heath Ledger, the man I am ashamed to say I underestimated gave what I consider the performance of his all to short life.

Ledger managed to capture everything that is the The Joker and made it his own, everything about him in this movie was so deliciously, wonderfully, hilariously Evil. He exudes the sense of maniacal psychosis combined with a genius intellect in every minuscule thing he did. I can not think of any one else who could manage to fill the audience with fear, horror, and Laughter all at the same time. Mr. Ledger if there is in a life after this one, and for some reason it allows you to hear and or read the words from this one, and for some reason you ever read mine here, please accept my whole hearten apology for doubting you so much. Even though it is not common practice for the dead to be able to win an Oscar let it be known that Ledger deserves it for this role, it is hard for me to imagine any party who would deserve it more, that being said most of this post is about me being pleasantly surprised now isn't it?

Unfortunately nothing is perfect and even a movie as wonder filled as this one had a couple of minor ones. The first is a bit insubstantial, once again I feel my self worried that it was to good, and that no other Batman movie or villain after this will be able to live up to those seen in The Dark Knight, but all I can do is cross my fingers and hope that I am again proven wrong. The second problem is a bit more concrete, it did suffer from some pacing problems.It felt long ( which it was at 2 and a half hours), mostly because there were about three areas of the movie that seemed to have the feel of an ending. Personally it felt as if they had shot enough footage for two movies, then after Ledgers untimely death they decided to combine them into one. If I were the one directing/editing the movie, I would have edited out the whole sequence where Twoface goes on his murder spree and used that as the opening to the next movie, thus having a great villain in place already and cutting down on the time and beat issues in the current masterpiece.

Now that the minor gripes I had with it are out of the way, I highly recommend every one who can go out and see this movie as soon as they can, it is an experience to be had in the theaters! But if you have small children I do not recommend taking them unless you really want them to have a latent phobia of clowns.