Humanjunk: Okay,  I’ll start this shit.

I have to say that I was in awe of the movie. I sat there speechless through the credits trying to catch up to the mind blowing experience that was The Dark Knight. It made Tim Burton’s versions look like Adam West shit them out and Batman Begins seem like kids stuff. There’s also a certain character element that Christopher Nolan loves to play around with and that is the concept of the gray area. Even the protagonists are flawed and questionable and the antagonists seem to play a similar role; Joker’s concept that he is there to be the natural antithesis of Batman, the element of Chaos in the world that inspires destruction as a form of  and element of creation.

The acting was superb and I almost want them to pull a George Lucas and digitally replace Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhaal in Batman Begins. George Lucas needs to take some notes as Nolan was able to make Harvey Dent’s forced descent into “the dark side” infinitely more unbearably tragic, personal and epic in one film and Lucas, well, couldn’t even make us give shit that we saw the evolution of some pumpkin headed kid mutate into the “vicious” Darth Vader. And The Joker was nothing short of amazing, three steps ahead of everyone, audience included “I’m gonna make this pencil disappear…”

This is arguably the greatest comic book movie ever made.

Swank-mo-tron: While I disagree strongly with Humanjunk’s assesment of Anakin Skywalker’s fateful turn to the dark side since it was flawless, I will agree that The Dark Knight was pretty damn good.  I’ve been going back and forth a lot about this new Batman universe that Nolan has created and I don’t think Batman Begins was exactly as good as the Tim Burton Batman film, but this film was as good as Burtons and possibly, possibly better.  I really do feel like the whole film was a climax and that is sort of what I needed from this movie.  It was creepy and scary and I really felt like lives were at stake. In fact, I was surprised when they didn’t kill Jim Gordon’s son.  I mean, the guy does have a bad habit of losing family members to bullets when the Joker is involved (Barbara, Sarah, etc.).

Having said that, I would really like to see a lot of elements of Dark Victory in the next one.  Yes.  I want to see Nolan handle Dick Grayson in this universe.  Bruce Wayne needs a meatier part and that’s the best way to do it.

Seriously though, this movie was really fucking good and I’m going to go see it again.

Humanjunk: You know, I felt the same way about Bruce Wayne needing a meatier part. But then, Bruce Wayne is the mask… I don’t know how I’d feel about seeing Robin in a Nolan movie…

Swank-mo-tron: Read Dark Victory again and you’ll feel fine.

Neotron: Approximately 86 % of my robot hard drive has been clumped full of “Dark Knight” anticipation for the last 4 months. Last night, my system overloaded and I needed a reboot. I saw the best picture of the year. TDK is the most gigantically ambitious epic I’ve ever seen. The places Nolan was willing (hoping?) to go with this picture was awe inspiring. The was truly the franchise’s “Empire Strikes Back”.

Acting: Everyone was pitch perfect in this picture. Nolan deserves a best director nod for balancing an immense amount of talent and and gluing them all together into one despairing yet brilliant conglomerate. My only complaint is Bale’s Batman voice. I had no idea what he was saying half the time. Even though I’m sure whatever he was saying was awesome. Heath Ledger…?

Joker: Yes, give him the Oscar and call it a knight. Villians in movie history stand in the shadows of Ledger’s human embodiment of the Devil himself. For those of you with even the slightest religious programs installed saw the obviousl comparisons to Lucifer in the Bible. Remember, in the Old Testament, when Satan appears to Moses and starts fucking with his head and it ends with him laughing so loud the mountains tremble? Whoa. The devil doesn’t want money, sex, or power. He just wants to fuck things up and he just wants to destroy and burn those who represent good. Not because of hate or anger, but for fun. His motivations alone were frightening, but Ledger’s performance created a nightmare of reality. We laughed because his limits of darkness were so unsettling. This was the Joker. THE Joker.

Script: Is is wrong to compare this to Shakespeare? A brilliant tragedy with poetic messages and comic relief, Shakespeare would have been the first in line to see this movie. Especially the reasoning Batman gave to Gordon in the end to still hold up Dent as a hero. The societal implications in this film were crystal clear and all the more tragic. I almost got teary eyed watching the cops chase the Dark Knight through the streets in Gotham at the end. He was Hamlet. He was Macbeth. He was Han Solo taking a douse of carbonite for the cause.

Too long: My review that is. So, quickly, one of the deaths in this film kicked me straight in the gut. Ballsy. The pencil magic trick is one I’d like to try. Oscar noms should go to Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and Supporting Actor. This is my favorite comic book movie ever. I can’t wait to see it again.

Pixelbot 7: All right, I’m weighing in. Personally, I don’t think there has been a comic book movie this good to date. You get so wrapped up in the characters, story, and the living nightmare that is The Joker. I forgot halfway into the movie that he was even Heath Ledger, as he brought the joker to life. You don’t agree with his actions, you even begin to hate this fictional character because he just makes him so sick.

Furthermore, I felt the star of this movie was not Bale, but Eckhart and Oldman. They brought so much superb talent to the Dark Knight and really made this movie come to life. I will see this multiple times, and buy the 8-disc-super-high-def edition of the DVD when it comes out. Also, The disappearing pencil trick is cinematic gold. Not one person in the theater did not gasp at that.

Kill-tacular-tron:  One word. Two syllables. Seven letters. Perfect.

Fucking perfect.

I loved Batman Begins. I couldn’t wait to talk about it with fellow nerds. The Dark Knight, I can’t even wrap my brain around it yet. Gordon’s final words, “He’s our Dark Knight.” The yin to the yang. Holy shit. And I’m sorry Swank, but Humanjunk is right. I felt more for Dent in the last hour of this movie than I ever have (or will) for Anakin. Once again Nolan does a great job of explaining Batman’s reasoning and gadgets. In the trailers the bat-pod threw me off. I thought, “chill out Kill. Nolan will explain it. Have faith.” Boy, I’m glad I did.

Up until this point, my favorite villain entrance in a movie was Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2. But the disappearing pencil trick blew me away. What better way to tell the audience, “enjoy those three inches on your chair. Because we’re going to keep you there for the next 2 hours.” Along with, “this isn’t your parent’s Joker.”

Fuck this movie was good.

Dr. Cyborg Robot M.D.: Well I wouldn’t give it a negative rating or anything, but I didn’t think that it was the greatest superhero movie ever made, in fact it fell far short of my expectations.

Maybe I read to many Batman comic books, but seems to me that in both this movie and Batman Begins they take good idea’s that were executed well in various comic books, then neuter them and pretend like it was there idea, and that they portrayed it the only way it would work on screen. It just bothers me to see them get an idea from a really good book, hint at it, and not do a good job making it work. I think Nolan was trying to keep to many things underlined. Is it just me, or was the stupid bat sonar cell phone/ Lucius quitting crap stupid or what? If you are going to make a two and a half hour movie, you can’t put in stupid stuff that no one cares about and waste everyone’s time. And about the Batman voice, not enough people complained the first time, so it wasn’t something they could have just done better, Nolan couldn’t have possibly known that people were annoyed by it.

What I am trying to say is I hoped not to see the same mistakes made twice. Batman Begins doesn’t exactly suck, but it isn’t as good as it should be, The Dark Knight is the same thing………………..Joker ruled.