the dark knight

directed by christopher nolan
screenplay written by jonathan nolan and christopher nolan
characters created by bob kane

starring christian bale, heath ledger, aaron eckhart, gary oldman, maggie gyllenhaal, morgan freeman, michael cain

a-frackin-mazing! great performances by everyone, including the city of chicago. christian is brilliant and delicious as the brooding and conflicted bruce wayne/batman. maggie kicks katie holmes' butt as a mature, smart and believable rachel dawes. heath was absolutely perfect as joker - ironic, scary, funny and insane. his performance will be part of his legacy. and aaron eckhart surprised me as harvey dent. the dark knight is much darker than batman begins and the edginess works extremely well. mini-spoiler: the scarecrow and two-face make appearances in this chapter (not so much a spoiler if you know the batman series). joker's and two-face's actions made me cringe several times. yet there are some violent actions that are left to the imagination rather than displaying a gorefest. which, in fact, makes the scenes a little freakier. your own imagination can take you to some dark places. this is NOT a film for young children. people who bring children under the age of 10 should lose their parenting rights. the story explores moral dilemmas, just as the graphic novel does. batman fans and non-fans alike can appreciate the action, fx, drama and dark humor. go see it. i'm going again, next time in IMAX!

ciao y'all!