“Best superhero movie EVER!!!!!!!”
“Heath ledger should get an OSCAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“The Dark Knight has rendered all other movies irrelevant”

These comments are not atypical of the hype ascribed to The Dark Knight, the latest installment in Christopher Nolans’s reboot of the Batman franchise. So did it live up to that hype? In short, no, but really no movie could. Instead what we have is a solidly crafted, exceedingly nihilistic, tightly wound thriller. Probably the biggest compliment I can give this film is that it completely transcended the comic book genre and became a legitimately good film on its own merits, a summertime blockbuster that isn’t carried by its superhero taking on bad guys.

Be warned this is not your typical comic book movie. Frankly, it’s not really an action movie, either, although the action sequences are breathtaking. It’s a very complex, multi-layered drama. Perhaps a tad too complex — the plotline is difficult to follow, particularly if you haven’t seen Batman Begins recently.

The characters are all very well written and portrayed. As reported by almost everyone, Ledger was excellent. His performance is one for the ages, but like Nic Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, it’s a one-note performance. But man it’s one helluva note. There is growing Oscar buzz for his performance and it is justified, particularly in an era of filmmaking when such “intellectual masterpieces” as Forrest Gump, Titanic and Gladiator have all won Best Picture Oscars. I’ll find it hilarious if the voters get snooty about “artistic legitimacy” and refuse to vote for Ledger because his character is based on a comic book.

Bale, Eckhart, Caine, Freeman, Oldman, etc. were all good in their roles. I’ve read critics complain that Bale’s performance is wooden, almost robotic. But to me, that is exactly what the role calls for, nothing bad, nothing good, just is. Caine and Freeman did the most with what they had, which wasn’t much, but given the ambitious scope of this film it is probably best that their roles were limited. The weakest link is Aaron Eckhart and yet he’s a fine actor who does a nice job and in any other movie his performance would be great — but he’s like a solid No. 5 starter in a rotation full of All-Stars.

What I didn’t like …

*** Warning Spoilers Ahead ***

First, the length. I guess we got our money’s worth, but this really felt like one and a half movies. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the Harvey Dent subplot, but I don’t understand why they couldn’t keep the audience guessing by holding Harvey’s little accident for the next film. This was Ledger’s film and I couldn’t help but feel that this movie could have used a little more Joker. I understand, that no one outside of the Olsen twins could have predicted Ledger’s premature demise, but I have a feeling that they were deliberately holding back the Joker for the next film. For obvious reasons, we’ll never know where the Joker storyline would have gone.

My only other major complaint was Maggie Gyllenhaal. This is going to sound cruel, and maybe it is, but to me she is the modern-day embodiment of Olive Oyl, minus the charm. And while in other works, she is 1000x the actress of Katie Holmes, she is miscast in this film. She did her best with the only predictable role in the film but just about everything they did with her was a romance/love triangle cliché.

My final verdict: this is a solid and at times spectacular film. A little tighter editing and it may have been a true masterpiece. Alas, my final opinion lies in the vast space between the rapturous majority and this utterly pretensious reviewer (who BTW loved Adam Sandler’s performance in Zohan so take his opinion with a grain of salt).