Finally saw The Dark Knight! (mild spoiler warnings)

Tweet

When I say spoiler, I mean this may give away some plot points, so continue at your own discretion. Last night my girlfriend and I, and some friends, finally got to see the biggest movie of the year (and they are so going to beat Titanic's $600 million record). The best part is, this movie deserves to be the biggest of the year. First of all, if you plan to take any children under 13, please don't. It's PG-13 for a reason, and even then, it is obvious they just barely got away without an R rating. There are things in this movie that will scare children. Hell, there are things that scare adults! Everything that everyone is saying about Heath Ledger as the Joker is true, and thensome. He blew the role out of the water and you actually forget that it is Heath Ledger at all. The Joker is scary because he is evil for the sake of being evil, and nothing else. Totally unpredictable, and extremely violent. Pencils will never be the same! "I'm like a dog chasing a car, if I catch it I wouldn't know what to do with it!" I have to go into a couple of topical things as well. The blown-up and levelled hospital looked more than a little like the Oklahoma City Bombing. The videos made by the Joker looked more than a little like terrorist threat videos. And perhaps a little harder to relate to, but when Gotham citizens are trying to cross the bridges, it brought me right back to the NYC blackout in 2003, when everyone was trying to cross the bridges but we were terrified because military choppers were everywhere and we didn't know what was going on yet. These images made me shake. Christopher Nolan is wisely tapping into our current paranoia and fear and I think for this reason this movie will be remembered and respected more than perhaps other Batman flicks. Too bad about Two-Face. :( And to leave the Joker's storyline literally hanging, well, that's just clever. Remember, "Slaughter is the best medicine!" =P