This was the first summer movie that I've gone to that had people clapping and cheering.

Sorry about the eat a dick thing, but ye gods, Batman Returns and Friday the 13th part IV? That is just mean.

But the Joker would have to be played by someone who could immerse themselves in the role and 'be' the joker. Heath's performance was just so fucking outstanding.

You don't need the AICN reviews in this case to know this movie kicks your balls up to the roof of your mouth.

I would think maybe the Catwoman like mentioned above, but who else?

Enter Mickey Rourke.

(Dent's not dead. Nolan said it was a mistake for Burton to kill the Joker, why would he set up Dent just to unconvincingly kill him off? If he was really dead, I think they would have made it clear. Plus, it's a comic book. The villain always lives to fight another day.)

Whilst in retrospect Jacks Joker may not measure up to the writing and different motivational story of Ledgers Joker, I don't believe for one second in '89 Harry had such disdain for the villian on offer. Just no.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I take issue to such correctional history. The Dark Knight's acclaim offers wonderful things to future 'comic book adaptations' and hopefully they'll be taken more seriously, but saying pretty much 'oh I always knew it could be this way' is lame excusionalist behaviour. No offence though Harry, I like you're style and a frequent visitor of the site.

And Harry, way to give props to Oldman. I thought he did a great rendition of Gordon in Begins, and I'm anxious to see how his role develops along with the rest of the returning cast. I'll take my leave of this talkback for now until I've seen the movie myself. Way too many spoilers floating around now. Hope everyone is having a ball this weekend. Cheers!

Yeah, I'm a conservative. Get over it now before reading further. No, I don't like Bush. And I certainly do not like McCain. Yet I am on board with the war on terror at large. I write this with understanding that the war on terror does not mean killing a single man, Bin Laden (aka the Joker). I know many of this site's frequentors feel differently. Sorry. We disagree. Please spare me your juvenile insults if you respond to this TB. Instead, check out the first article in the Bill of Rights which so recently afforded Jesse Jackson a convenient double-standard. On the other hand, rational debate is certainly encouraged.

To me, this movie was a refreshing Hollowood take on questioning how the war on terror is being prosecuted. It wasn't all lefty-leany. The atypical Hollowood fare. Instead, the flick was very "fair and balanced" if you AICN majority liberals can stomach such a phrase. Ultimately, this carefully nuanced movie made me think long and hard about the steps we've taken as a nation toward such an end.

The scene with the two cruise ships astounded me. I had thought the set up was that the Joker planted the detonator on each ship FOR that ship. In other words, had they pressed the trigger, they would have blown up their own ship. Another ho-hum done-that-before arc. I was pleasantly suprised that the movie portrayed Americans, of any stripe, as above sacrificing others to benefit themselves. Even if such sacrifice meant that of "cold hearted" crimminals. You left-leaners should understand this already were I to stereotype you. I write the word "perhaps" in jest. Of course you do. We conservatives were the ones stereotyed in that particular scene and you know it. And we were portrayed fairly. That resonated with me big time. Especially since it is accurate, despite what you may think.

Look, there is no clearer message than the cell phone "sonic" technology that Fox created which Batman employed -- "unilaterally" even. It's all about the Bush wiretapping, period. Fox (pun?) clearly had issues with the use of such a tool and theatened Batman with a dissolvement of their relationship at risk of Gotham at large. And yet, Batman made his promises and used this technology only to its intended end, the elimination of the Joker. Afterward, it was destroyed. He ultimately upheld the peoples' trust and Lucius's trust.

Opposing Batman is not the Joker. It was Dent. The typical fall from grace arc that I normally would be bored with if it wasn't utilized as such a contrast and analogy to that of Batman's. Dent had truly noble beginnings that ultimately dissolved when things got personal (i.e. harkening to how the alleged allegations of Dubya seeking payback for 41's assassination attempt). Where Batman tempered his vigilante ways with a code of ethics and morality, Dent made his sinister choices on a luck of the draw. Perhaps, even, the "heat of the moment." The likes of which the USA has been justly and heavily criticized of this in recent years.

Which brings me to the question this movie urged me to consider -- is my home country embodied by Batman or Dent? We are acting unilaterally in many ways. Most countries often do. As were the folks on the cruise ships, both felon and civilian. But are our actions in the interest of the greater good (Batman) or are we acting totally irrationally (Dent)? AND how can we deal with such shit when a force of nature (the Joker) is literally laughing in our faces while we ponder?

How rare in this day and age for a high budget Hollowood movie, a COMIC BOOK movie at that, to force us to reflect and decide? I think I enjoyed this ethical dillemma more than the movie itself.

Go ahead. Rip me up. You know you want to. BTW, the Obamassiah was against wiretapping (http://tinyurl.com/5jwv92) before he was for it (http://tinyurl.com/5bghgb). But absolute truths are inadmissable when it's so much more easy to paint someone a racist.

The whole time I watched this, I fucking knew that this guy was a crazy fuck. It wasn't 'guy pretending to be bugnuts' it was 'This guy's fucking crazy, and being around him too long, your ass will go crazy too.'. That he was crazy in a way that no one would want to emulate, a villain that was villainous and enough of a pathetic shit that you just can't look away from him. Finally, a villain I liked and loathed myself for laughing at at the same time. Joker? A fucking nutbar with knives and some kind of idiot savant ability to plan fucking carnage. I imagine the first couple of months that Keyser Soze went on his rampage of revenge? He was like this guy...only not quite as crazy.

This Joker is unique, and yet, THE fucking Joker. He's not an affable goofy vaude-villain, like Caesar Romero...He's not the fucking lunatic 'artiste' that Nicholson jerked off onto the screen...nor is he the over the top Joker that Hamill made awesome on the cartoon...In fact, the cartoon Joker would be scared of this fucker. The Arkham Asylum one shot would BE this Joker, and 'The Killing Joke' Joker would BE this Joker. The DKR Joker, Miller's crowning achievement? This is the Joker the Bat would break necks for. The Nolans wrote a balls to the wall, DETECTIVE COMICS Batman story that played out like a mini series on the screen. It was fucking fantastic. It is, however, just a flick, but fuck, man. It's pretty fucking amazing that something this good got past the boards with 'comic book' as its source.

The ferry scene was good because by this point, you're sitting in your seat, squirming, because this movie's not pulling your pud pretending that everything's gonna be fine, that Batman can save everyone, it's telling you that thinking everything's gonna be fine is not only a lie, but the worst thing you can do in their shitty world because with guys like the Joker...you NEVER know.

SPOILER FOR THOSE WHO HAVE SEEN IT

I think the Joker rigged the detonators to blow up the boats they were on, not the other boat.

They got every single thing right about Batman. Everything. He's a detective in this flick, and a badass. They got every character right, and Rachel Dawes was the perfect character for this flick. It was so damned good.

The Nolans deserve the fucking nod for this screenplay. Oscars, baby. This flick deserves it.

Having written that, please respond to the "other" words you read in my post. Thanks.

Ultimately -- there was a time when Hollowood made us THINK instead of preach to us. An unexpected return to form, this movie.

Honestly, I did not like Batman Begins at all for many reasons. I went to this movie tonight only as a social bridge with my 17-year old son. And I am still amazed at the epiphany it led me to.

It wasn't much more than an entertaining movie, but it made me think. And that is what makes it a GREAT movie.

Ahem.

Let me spell this out for you so you understand where this 'lefty-leaning-liberal' is comin' from, partner.

Wiretapping AMERICAN FUCKING CITIZENS is against the FOURTH FUCKING Amendment to the Constitution you tried to reference earlier in your statement. I have the right to fucking privacy. I'm an American. Don't matter a whit if you're trying to catch Osama (Yeah, dead fucking brill job of that so far...Keep looking for him in this country, who knows? You might fucking push one of the nice paranoid, the government's comin' for mah guns, Right Wing Tim McVeigh motherfuckers to do just that, be our very own Joker.) Now, you want to wiretap NON-American citizens on our soil? Know what books THEY check out of the library? Fucking extradite them to some hell-hole and interrogate the shit out of them if you have proof of wrongdoing? Go right ahead. Until they're citizens, they've got no reason to bitch. So, I believe in the CIA and the FBI and the NSA...but you cannot police your own people by treating them like fucking criminals. Torture...well, that's really up to the viewer, yeah? Morally, I'm against torture, as well as logically. Because torture does nothing to gain solid intel, according to the guys doing the torturing since the 70s or so. Reading a lot, I guess, makes me 'liberal'.

Next on my list of your grasping for straws, house of cards analogy, is the fact that you assume this is some kind of pastiche of post-911 'rah rah' bullshit for YAAAY! America!

The fact that The Joker in this case is right, that we fucking panic too easy, and cave into the demands of terrorists when the chips are down should tell you this. Fuck, I can't catch a goddamned airplane anymore without a telescope going up my ass and some dipshit with an IQ of 9 checking out my fuck