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Heath Ledger. I was oddly curious when I heard that he was going to play this part, as I only see him as the pretty boy actor in a knights tale, 10 things I Hate about you and, well the Broken mountain movie, which admittedly I did not see(not homo phobic just I like the cowboy genre and just could imagine Clint Eastwood macing on Lee Van Cleef in "The gay, The bad and The not so metro-sexual, but thats another article entirely).
Mildly surprised? No, more like Blown away by the acting job Mr. Ledger left behind as his legacy. He was the main focal point of every scene he was in, he would have scared Jack Nicholson(yeah even the shinny Jack). He was both comical, yet when you laughed it made you feel a little uncomfortable. From his physical presence(kind of a clumsy, psycho-path), to his inflections, he pretty much put the viewer in a place they really didn't want to be. and as the movie went on you felt the journey got darker and darker. He made sick and twisted look like the girl scouts in front of the Ralph's selling cookies. Truly a great loss to the film industry.
Story. Pretty much the entire movie is story driven. Special effects took a back seat to a plot that got thicker and thicker. Questions of humanity are raised, and the darkness that is Batman was ever present from scene to scene, this Batman made the 80s and 90's Batman seem like it was done by a bunch of nuns. Evil was evil, and good was good, and in between Bruce Wayne sat, pondering his justifications for his wanderings in the night.
Christian Bale is excellent of course, except(please do not read this section if you are easily annoyed at a way an actor delivers lines) for his voice while dressed as the caped crusader. It was overly distorted, and at points hard to understand. I never thought Batman smoked like 8 packs of smokes an hour, but he sure talks like he does. It was certainly not enough to ruin the movie by any means but I wished he toned it down a bit.
The rest of the cast was very supportive, as always Gary Oldman is excellent(best character actor of our generation), and Morgan Freedman, is the refined wine that he has always been. Even Micheal Caine was good(normally hes good to me, but he does so many movies it can kind of poke at you like the song they play too much on the radio, think Samuel Jackson). The rest are just strong members of a great cast, the Actress that played Rachel wasn't much of an improvement to Crazy Holmes, I mean Katie. If fact I don't even recall her name now...
When you are ready to look at the Dark side of Batman, and see Justice in a faded light instead of the glorious shinning star that those in authority would like you to believe in. Give Dark Night a look over. At some point you may end up rooting for the Bad guy, because of his Charisma and almost heroic manner. But while good sat on one side, and Evil clearly defined itself some where in between is a Billionaire playboy who wonders around at night beat up criminals with his bare hands. He is the double edged sword of Gotham that inspires hope in the city, but also endangers her at the same time. Complex, rich and sometimes even hard to follow this is one movie you will probably want to see again for all the little things you missed because you were so engulfed in its epic presence.
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