Dark Knight in Shining Armor

Early this past Sunday, while the good boys and girls were out churching, Dara and I caught the highly anticipated film, "The Dark Knight." I've no time for proper film criticism, but I will say that the film deserves all the accolades it receives. Nearly.

Most praise for the film has fallen on Heath Ledger's stunning performance, and rightly so. The hair stands on your head as you watch flesh out the scenes we all obsessively glimpsed in the countless trailers. Ledger's performance threatens to eclipse the movie and almost would do so, if not for Nolan's careful handling of the story. The cinematography fits the tone, as does the haunting music. The Joker's leitmotif comes to mind as a couple of notes fighting it out, sounding like a vacuum cleaner eerily signal to the viewer that the Joker is about to chill and thrill us.

So what's wrong with this movie? My complaint is not great, and would easily have been rectified if someone had invited me to a pre-screening. The biggest albatross weighing the film down is the clunky subplot involving Aaron Eckhart's Two Face character. This character promises more than it can possibly deliver in a 2.5+ hour movie. In fact, that's another complaint: the length. This movie didn't have to be so long, and if Chris Nolan had excised the Two Face character, or at least diminished his involvement in the film, he would have all but eliminated my complaints (which is a huge concern for him, to be sure).

But there is one more minor complaint: as brilliant as Christian Bale is at resurrecting the Batman character, his barking-dog delivery of the dialog while wearing the cowl is tiresome.

But the complaints are minor. "The Dark Knight" was a great viewing experience, highly recommended to all. Next up, the following question: how does it stack up against Tim Burton's immortal original?