The Dark Knight

This afternoon, we caught an early showing of "The Dark Knight," the latest "Batman" movie.

It lived up to the good word-of-mouth. Christian Bale and Gary Oldman turned in fine performances, as did Heath Ledger as The Joker.

If Ledger had portrayed The Joker anonymously, one would never know it was him behind the make-up. That's how deeply he disappeared into the role.

My only criticism of "The Dark Knight" would be its somewhat overly long running time.

Roger Ebert summed up the film well in the lead of his very positive review:

“Batman” isn’t a comic book anymore. Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” is a haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy. It creates characters we come to care about. That’s because of the performances, because of the direction, because of the writing, and because of the superlative technical quality of the entire production.