The Dark Knight Reigns!

So my friends and I were all thrilled to the bone to see "Dark Knight" at midnight. Planning the whole thing turned out to be ridiculously difficult, including moving theatres twice, buying tickets in bulk, more changes in rides than I could bother to count, three auditorium moves, and eventually second-row seats.

But, let me tell you, every second and every penny was worth it.

Since we anticipated a simply stunning night, my "daughter" Jenny and I made T-shirts, one for each of us and one for Celia. T-shirt was black, and on the front we painted the batman logo, the yellow glo-in-the-dark (but not too obnoxious, thankfully). On the back we wrote in red, "Why so Serious?" exactly (or as close to) the poster right here as we could. And let me tell you, those shirts were freaking amazing. The front was kind of obnoxiously taking over my chest, but our backs were the creepiest things at AMC...okay, the guys who dressed up as Joker and Scarecrow were pretty creepy too, but...I thought we looked pretty tight. ;)

This movie, my friends, was simply pure cinematic nightmare building thrilling beautiful amazing bliss.

Christian Bale did a wonderful job reprising as Bruce Wayne. His Batman is probably the best batman I know of, even if it's the only one I'm experianced with. He did a great job making Bruce tortured, but not whiny or anything, and his jelousy throughout the movie was well-done. I applaud him greatly for making Bruce interesting, but for making Batman the star...Batman himself had such an attitude that it's just wonderful. Commissioner sums it up beautifully as describing him as not a hero and not a villian, but a dark knight.

Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent was a unique character himself. Harvey Dent was a great, solid, strong character. He had strong conviction and I loved him. But when Harvey...changes...he loses almost all his strong character qualities. All of a sudden, he is just a plain evil character, with only a few interesting qualities. Perhaps, in any other movie, Two-Face would have been outstandingly unique and frightening. But playing alongside Heath Ledger's Joker, Two-Face was a puppy dog.

Ledger MADE this movie. If the entire movie had been nothing but Joker's psychotic actions and dialouge, I would still call it the best movie I've seen all year. He was perfect, and it's difficult for me to describe how perfect he was. His lines, his actions, his movements. His attitude, his thought-processes, his joys and disappointments. His jokes, his threats, his lies, his murders, his murder weapons. Joker is the man of nightmares, my friends. And I'd tell you more, but I believe we have to go soon...

There's plenty more to the movie I'd love to talk about. The deaths that never happened, the plotlines, the other characters and action scenes, and everything else. But really, I feel like the most important thing to talk about was the fact that all the work Ledger put into Joker was well, well worth it. And do you remember the thing when the first Dumbledore died? How Dumbledore 2.0 never quite got up to scruff, no matter how hard he tried?

I don't think there could ever be another Joker like this one, ever. And it's a shame that the next movies are almost ruined because we can't have him back. But then again....maybe we only need one movie of that much evil.