The Dark Knight

It's dark. It's gloomy. It's filled with action. The plot had a couple of holes. It was, in places, unbearably pretentious as it hit the audience over the head--repeatedly--with its Serious Message.

It was, in short, a Batman comic on the big screen.

And since everyone's raving about Heath Ledger's performance: I agree with the BBC reviewer. It's very good; you see the madness, and the anguish behind the madness. A good actor who left us too soon. But at the end of the day, he's playing an iconic over-the-top villain, in clown makeup, in a superhero movie. He's doing it very well, mind you... But any posthumous Oscar will be because he died, not because of his performance.

And I didn't quite get the point of one reviewer who said it looked too much like Chicago, not enough like Gotham. Having seen the movie... I get it. And I agree. Not nearly gritty or claustrophobic enough for Gotham.