The Dark Knight

This is unarguably the best DC movie ever made. I haven’t seen it in a decade, and I’ve been saving it for the end of this DC movie bonanza as a prize. It is just as amazing as I remembered it being.

Heath Ledger’s Joker is possibly cinema’s greatest villain. His entire performance is brilliant, and manages to be both humorous yet terrifying. This movie does suffer from the standard DC issue – why are the villains doing what they do? There is a great quote to try and justify the issue, “some men just want to watch the world burn”, but I still find it less believable when there is not at least some benefit. Regardless, Ledger is so good that it’s not worth penalizing the movie in the slightest.

Additionally, the movie adds Maggie Gyllenhaal as Bale’s love interest. It’s incredible that this movie manages to have a better cast than the first film, and everyone nails their roles. The acting is excellent across the board, and they make good characters into great characters.

The story itself is also brilliantly done. Multiple major characters have well designed character arcs, and the stories are meant to look at heroism and cowardice and do a decent job with both.

There are a variety of action scenes, and each one is exciting from beginning to end. It’s one of the rare movies that I’ll call perfect, and it gets a 10/10.