Spoiler. It was awesome. And creepy.

It also makes him the intellectual equal of Batman instead of a goofy mob boss, which is awesome. Have to wonder where a third film could go, though, given such a grim ending.

The sonar cellphones was over the top but the movie was so good I can forgive them. Operation skyhook in HK for example was just insanely awesome.

As for the series going forward it will be interesting. Joker is the trump card for them as hes just such an amazing villain and after that performance they are kinda stuck in an impossible position of finding someone to play him again in future movies. We will be stuck with cameos of hysterical laughter from his jail cell up in the loony bin.

Honestly give him an Oscar, I think he actually might of gone insane getting into character.

f*cking good. That is all

Best batman movie ever. Best movie of the summer so far. Best comic book movie ever.

Heath Ledger is The Joker. It's almost like he's not really playing a part. I would argue there hasn't been such a complete transformation like this by an actor on screen in years. They're gonna have to just write him out of the third movie. The bar has been set and barring some kind of miracle from the casting department I can't see them finding anyone able, or maybe even willing, to try to match Ledger's performance in this movie. Truly a shame that he's gone. On top of this you have Aaron Eckhart in an absolutely awesome portrayal of Harvey Dent and then Two-Face. The lightning quick burst of pure anger in the hospital bed when he was talking to Gordon scared half the audience in the theater I was in. Another guy that really just inhabits the character in a way I wasn't expecting.

The movie is non stop tension from beginning to end. When it ended I had no idea I'd been in the theater that long. Some will say this movie is too long, but those people are nuts. There isn't a single thing in there I can imagine leaving out.

The idea, as I understood it, was that it uses sonar because that works with basic technology available on everybody's cellphone already. His software eavesdrops on their phone, then transmits an inaudible high-frequency ping through the speaker and listens for the response - all the sonar imaging stuff happens server-side.

Just saw it. Heath Ledger is/was awesome: as others have said, it was a transcendent performance. It is very sad we will not see any more of his work.

The effects were very good-to-great, the casting was very well done (beyond Ledger, Gary Oldman(?) was still spot-on as Lt./Commisioner Gordon as is Michael Caine), and the cinematic flair was awesome, in an over the top sort of way.

As for the rest of the movie, it was OK as far as it goes but not the best comic movie ever. It was too long. The whole Two-Face portion felt, to me, to be done in a gratuitous manner. I don't think having it in the movie per se added anything (yes, I understand about the comic and the characters, but we're talking about the movie here). The latter half of the movie always appeared to be one staged effect after another - the mayor assassination scene followed by the the take Dent to the county lockup scene to the staged "decide which one dies" scene to the hospital scene to the final SWAT-almost-blowing-away-all-the-civilians scene. One set piece after another.

Also, I realize it's just a movie but, man, I felt like I'd been hit over the head multiple times with the morality hammer when I came out of the theater. Good-bad, chaos-order, I felt like I'd just played a B-level RPG. Coming out, after the movie I couldn't help but think: George Bush - not the hero we want, the hero we deserve (I think there's something wrong with me...).

Is it a horrible movie? No. It is one of the better comic movies I've ever seen, up there with Iron Man, the first two Spiderman movies and the first two X-Men movies. But best? Sorry.

Don't you know?!?

In Gotham, everybody uses an iPhone (save that one shot in China of the handset Fox showed to Bruce Wayne -- again, not Gotham, but China).

(Cue evil Steve Jobs cackle.)

I'm right there with Thin J - best movie of the summer, probably the best comic book movie ever. My brother said it was one of the best movies that he'd ever seen, and that he wishes more movies were that good. I told him I felt that way maybe once a year if I'm lucky - by coincidence, the last time I felt that was with Thank You For Smoking, which also featured Aaron Eckheart. The time before that was Old Boy, which everyone here needs to run out and rent if you haven't seen it before (and if you haven't, don't read any of the wikipedia entry past the opening description - chock full of spoilers).

Anyway, it's just possible that Heath Ledger deserves all the things people were saying about this performance ahead of time. I thought it was totally lame that people were saying Oscar, figuring it was a sympathy vote, but now I think it would be deserved. It is a damn shame that the dude was just coming into the flower of his profession when he died.

I, too, loved his multiple origins - SO true to the comic. And lying about which captive was where! I didn't see it coming, but I totally believed it from the Joker.

By the way, we could totally have Two-Face in a future Batman movie. Maybe the casket was empty and they committed him to Arkham in secret. After seeing this flick, I'm starting to believe they could make a great movie out of the Arkham Asylum graphic novel. That said, it's cool that these flicks tell great Batman stories that are pretty faithful to the overall Batman lore by still keep us in suspense with original tales.

After it was over, Sigsbee asked if that was what Batman comics were like. "Well, it's not that dark all the time, but sometimes, when they really let the Joker off the leash...oh, yeah."

I agree that the "best movie ever" hyperbole is a bit of a stretch.

One thing that really annoyed me was that my theater (I'm assuming) f*cked up the volume levels somehow on the film. This is in a digital projection theater, and the dialog track was often times inaudible (yet the music was ass-shakingly loud). Gordon's whole speech to his son at the end, for example, was so low I could barely make out every other word. Not the movie's fault, but it took away from my overall enjoyment of the film.

Ledger was great in the role, I will admit. Infinitely better than Nicholson.

Bale's growly Batman voice REALLY seemed sort of silly, esp. during longer conversations.

I purposely avoided any of the Harvey Dent make-up spoilers in the last few months, so I found that to be quite gruesome. Again, thinking of Tommy Lee Jone's goofy pink face makeup and zebra striped suit just makes me shake my hear. There is room for Dent to be alive, as has been suggested, and I kind of liked him in the movie, but I don't think he has enough "juice" to headline a film on his own... he was more of a tragic figure than a nutty supervillain.

This film WAS long, like the LOTR movies are long... long because there is a TON of crap going on. Maybe TOO much (I haven't made up my mind yet), but it didn't really drag.

Batman meets Bat-Manuel. Classic.

I don't think it's "jumping to an assumption," just that it is ambiguous enough to pull off if they so chose.

Do you have a source for the idea that these movies are "canon"? They might have adapted some comcepts from the film into the comics (since the movie was so popular), but none of this stuff jibes with the traditional "comic" source material.

"The Killing Joke" GN showed the traditional origin, with Joker being some schmuck named the "Red Hood" who fell into a vat of chemicals during a robbery. I haven't followed the current Batman chronology, and I know they've brought this "red hood" guy back as a villain, so maybe the "official" version of The Joker has changed. But The Joker in the film is just a normal (heh) garden variety psychopath, without any origin story (or with multiple stories... take your pick).

Two-Face, in the comics, was a DA that had acid thrown on his face. Again, I don't know what they've changed with him over the last few years, so who knows.

Umm... no? I'm not sure what you mean by canon. They generally follow the spirit of the figures in the comicbook (Ras' Al-Ghul is an environmentalist that wants to bring the world back to a natural state, Scarecrow is an unethical psychologist obsessed with the effects of fear). However, they Nolan tries to reflect a more plausible overall universe (Ras isn't an immortal that's harnessing the power of mystical pools to come back to life).

But just because the films go one way, doesn't necessarily mean that the comics will take a similar stance.

I like the interpretation one of the bank goons laid out: Warpaint.

I have to agree with the sentiment that this is the best comic book movie evah! Spiderman 2 is a close second with the original Superman in third.

I also agree that the cell phone thing was a little on the tech-gasmic side, but it didn't begin to outweigh the awesomeness of the rest of the movie.

Ledger was perfect as the Joker. Funny and frightening. Nicholson was only able to pull half of that off.

My impression was that Dent wasn't really dead, but what do I know?

Well that's not what you said when you disputed the opinion. Specifics man.

Also: Your opinion is wrong

And again: It was his sled. There. I just saved you two boobless hours.