'The Dark Knight ' Movie Reviews

Applause, please!


Both critics and fans have tuned into that same Bat-Channel once again and all I can say is 'Holy Great Reviews, Batman!

Everyone seems to be loving the latest Batman franchise movie, 'The Dark Knight' and dark it was! Its hard to decide who turned in a better performance, Christian Bale, who reprized his role as the one and only caped crusader, or Heath Ledger, who is being praised for his sinister and evil portrayal of The Joker.

There was so much hype leading up to the movie, that often makes it hard for the movie to live up to that hype, but 'The Dark Knight' totally delivers. Heath Ledger's untimely death makes this picture even more dark, just knowing that, sadly, this is his last completed role and a great talent has been taken from us way too soon. There is a line in the movie when The Joker says something along the lines of "me and the Batman, we need each other". And indeed, every hero needs his arch nemesis, but what will our Batman movies do now in the future? I truly believe no one can ever live up to Ledger's Joker, but then again, I thought no one could ever live up to Keaton's Batman and Christian Bale has done a spot on job doing just that!


I am curious to see if they put the Joker in the next movie or if they just leave well enough alone. They dropped a hint, and I believe the next Batman movie villain will be Catwoman, but I hope I'm wrong actually; lets leave all the "done there, been that" alone and have a new villain that we haven't seen before in the live action films!


Rapturous reviews and a Joker-fueled frenzy helped 'The Dark Knight' blow past 'Spider-Man 3' for a record-breaking $158.3 million opening weekend. See why critics are hailing Heath Ledger's final performance as "mad-crazy-blazing brilliant" and referring to this 'Batman Begins' sequel as a "full symphony." [MovieFone has] the scoop in our roundup of 'Dark Knight' reviews.

Here is what the critics are saying:

"In 'The Dark Knight,' Christopher Nolan's ominously labyrinthine and exciting sequel to 'Batman Begins,' good and evil aren't just separate forces -- at times, they're a whisper away from each other -- and the movie exudes a predatory glamour that makes the comic-book films that have come before it look all the more like kid stuff." -- Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

''I can only speak superlatives of Ledger, who is mad-crazy-blazing brilliant as the Joker. Miles from Jack Nicholson's broadly funny take on the role in Tim Burton's 1989 'Batman,' Ledger takes the role to the shadows, where even what's comic is hardly a relief ... If there's a movement to get him the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976's Network, sign me up." -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

"Bale again brilliantly personifies all the deep traumas and misgivings of Batman's alter ego, Bruce Wayne. A bit of Hamlet is in this Batman. Ledger's performance is a beauty. His Joker has a slow cadence of speech, as if weighing words for maximum mischief and contempt." -- Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter

"Good and evil, peace and chaos, Batman and the Joker are two sides of the same coin -- with their fates just a wrist-flick away -- in this gritty, glorious sequel to 'Batman Begins.' Thanks to impressive action, Christian Bale's tortured turn as the demon-knight and Heath Ledger's unsettling, unforgettable performance as his clown-faced foe, this is a masterpiece -- no joke." -- Tom DiChiara, Moviefone

"'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." -- Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun-Times

"It's a tribute to Ledger's indelible work that he makes the viewer entirely forget the actor behind the cracked white makeup and blood-red rictus grin, so complete and frightening is his immersion in the role. With all due respect to the enjoyable camp buffoonery of past Jokers like Cesar Romero and Jack Nicholson, Ledger makes them look like -- well, clowns." -- Justin Chang, Variety

Besides all of these critics giving unlikely praise to an action / comic book film, the viewers are also chiming in with their praises as well! The movie review site, RottenTomatoes.com has The Dark Knight at a very high 94% approval rating!