Like most of the other nerds in the world with disposable income, I went to the midnight showings of The Dark Knight on Thursday night.  A few minutes into Friday Morning, the film started (after a preview of the Watchmen movie, and a friend of mine and I finally became excited about it.  Until the preview, I wasn’t looking forward to it at all…but I digress.)

The Dark Knight was an excellent movie.  The movie was so good, that I was only aware of my problems with it after the fact.  Let me say that again: I was certain that I was going to be let down by this movie all the way through, but I never was, even though I had problems with it.

And interestingly?  The problems were exactly what I predicted.  Naturally, Spoilers follow.

And no, not Stephanie Brown.

My primary problem was with The Joker.  Heath Ledger’s performance was uncanny, and fantastic.  I don’t know if they give post mortem Oscars, may he rest in peace, but I think he deserves a nomination.  He was fantastically creepy, scary and insane, all of which are necessary for a good Joker.

There were many things he was not, however.  He wasn’t zany or whimsical or even all that clownish apart from his white skin (the movie never said his skin was bleached, everyone just kept saying he used paint.  This was never confirmed or denied at any point, so who’s to say?  I’m falling in the “his skin was bleached” camp.)  He was funny, sure.  He was hilarious at times.  But this was not a Joker who would wear a flower pinned to his coat for the purpose of spraying acid.  This wasn’t a Joker who would orchestrate ludicrously complicated song and dance routines to break into while evading police and/or Batman.

The ideal Joker is dark and menacing, sure, but he’s also playful.  The Joker presented in The Dark Knight was dark through and through, and he only rarely chuckled mindlessly (he never cackled, either.  I want my Joker to cackle.)

Now, I want to reiterate: I loved this film.  I’ll probably see it again.  I went in expecting to be the harshest Joker critic imaginable, and in retrospect I’m still coming down pretty hard on this portrayal.  But even so!  This is a movie worth watching, a movie that every self-respecting Batfan needs to see.  If you liked the first one, then you should like this one as well.

Now the tough question for myself is whether I liked this more or less than Wall-E (which I should also review soon, despite it being so late after its release.)