Best.Batman.Ever

Though we couldn't find (decent) seats in this weekend's IMAX theaters (I'm doing that up right now for sometime this week), my son and I did take in this year's best summer, and possibly best 2008, movie--The Dark Knight. Christopher Nolan's second Batman film far surpassed his first. Everyone in the cast is great in this movie, and the scope of the story is tightly plotted, but honors the mythology of this long-standing comic book series. And though the opposing titans here are Christian Bale and the late Heath Ledger, the whole cast is marvelous--especially Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent.

More than few people where wondering why they'd re-run villains from early Batman movies. But this year's Joker's is so far-reaching and menacing (plus, so less caricature than Jack Nicholson's) from Tim Burton's Batman (1989). Add to this, Eckhart's Dent was pure, great Greek tragedy when compared to the disaster Tommy Lee Jones wasted in Batman Forever (and where Joel Schumacher started to wreck this franchise). Everything here was perfectly blended to make one great film. I see now why many critics have sighted other great film sagas (Heat and Zodiac, to name a couple) in their reviews. This movie is appropriately named--it is dark. However, the director, screenwriter, and producers have created one of the best films to have ever originated from that most under-rated of literary sources: the lowly comic book.