The Dark Knight review--spoilers abound

Really good movie. Not sure how I feel about it yet.

In all honesty, Heath Ledger's Joker outshone every other member of the cast, hands down. And no, it's not just because he's dead. He really outdid himself here. The Joker was creepy, funny, and--surprisingly for a comic book character turned bigscreen villain--believable. A truly masterful performance, which I could have wished for in a whole other movie, but alas.

Christian Bale was something of a disappointment this time around. I loved his performance in Batman Begins, where he managed to turn this comic book antihero into a human being with real motivations. He (and the screenwriters, to be fair) didn't seem to feel the need for much character development this time around. Oh sure, there was his conflict regarding the necessity for keeping Batman around, but that's just because he wanted to be with Rachel. ***SPOILER*** Once Rachel was gone, there was no longer any real need to get rid of Batman, ergo the conflict disappeared.

Now, Aaron Eckhart is something of a newcomer for me, I haven't really seen him in much before, but I was pleasantly rewarded by his performance. Nothing really stunning, but overall a good choice. ***SPOILER*** His Two Face was so graphic as to be distracting, though. Once his face got seared off, I didn't really pay attention to anything he said, I just kept staring at that terrible face. I am surprised that they killed Two-Face off so early; he easily could have been the villain in a third movie, especially now that Heath Ledger is gone--anyone who tried to pick up The Joker from there would be crazy.

Maggie Gyllenhaal was as big a disappointment as Katie Holmes was. WTF?

Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman were, as always, underappreciated and underscripted. Alfred's jokes seemed a little forced, trying to lighten the tone of the movie, and his relationship with Wayne seemed a little too old-hat, nothing new there. Of course, this is tied into Batman's lack of development; it only makes sense that his cronies would suffer a similar lack.

Jim Gordon/Gary Oldman had some nice step-up moments this time around. ***SPOILER*** I absolutely loved the moment when Gordon meets Bruce Wayne after the latter's lamborghini gets smashed. Nice reminder of the Wayne/Batman duality, which we didn't have nearly enough of.

The plot was a little involved this time, too. The stint in Hong Kong didn't really seem to serve a good plot purpose, except to show off some more Bat-gadgets. The Joker's plan certainly could have been developed a little closer to home, and the screenwriters could have introduced the sonar similarly.

However, I simply loved the Dent-Dawes-Batman-Wayne love pentagram, and frankly the Joker was so fascinating it couldn't help make up for the rest of the movie's flaws. The ins and outs of his battle with Batman kept the entire audience on nerves' end throughout the movie--we kept expecting him to pop out of nowhere in every scene, and still we were startled whenever he did.

All I can say at this point is that the movie appears to have been misnamed; it's not really about the Dark Knight, but about his greatest nemesis, who will never be so great again.