The Next Morning...

/

Still a lot to take in. We left the theater last night around 10:00 PM and immediately wanted to see it again. Full review forthcoming, but a couple thoughts and impressions:

  1. Heath Ledger: Wow. I worried that the performance wasn't going to live up to the hype. The opposite was true: the hype still doesn't match just how incredible he is in this movie.
  2. Gotham City: It feels a lot more like a city this time around instead of a set. Everything benefits from a very practical, organic feel. Yeah, you see a lot of it in daylight, but that doesn't hinder the menace and gloom that pervades the city's soul.
  3. The "Superhero" Element: If you take out all the superhero elements from the film, you would still have an incredible crime/thriller akin to movies like HEAT. In an odd way, this kind of acts like a double edged sword (more forthcoming).
  4. The Ending: Uh, can anyone say EMPIRE STRIKES BACK? Damn! Harvey Dent's line from the trailer "It's always darkest before the dawn" plays heavily into the structure of the film and the (assumed) third movie.
  5. Third Movie: Can't wait, not only because of how THE DARK KNIGHT sets up the events that need to transpire in the final film, but how Christopher Nolan and his team are going to get around the seemingly insurmountable hurdle posed by the tragic death of Ledger.
The weird thing is, despite all the thrills and chills and agreed on excellence displayed in the movie, neither the Missus nor myself left the theater with the same sense of "HOLY CRAP" we did after leaving BATMAN BEGINS. I'm thinking it's because there was so much there to digest that it's the kind of film that's going to seep in over time.

Dunno. That's why I'm taking an extra day or so to think everything through before writing a full review. But it was one hell of a movie.