I’ll say from the beginning that I’m going to have a hard time reviewing this movie, because I have mixed opinions about it, and the audience is going exactly through the same thing, but I’ll give my best. So, let’s go.

Synopsys: the events in the Dark Knight are set a year after the story in Batman Begins. Once again, we see Batman (Christian Bale) and Lt. James Gordon (Gary Oldman) trying to fight against crime in Gotham City, and they have also gained a new ally, the newly appointed District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). Their plan to rid Gotham of criminals seems to be working until a new criminal mastermind known as the Joker (heath Ledger) makes his appearance. The movie presents the battle between a symbol of morality, Batman, and the symbol of chaos and anarchy, the Joker.

Now the hardest part, that of the pro’s and con’s of the movie.

The pro’s: well, I have to say that Heath Ledger’s performance was absolutely great. Critical voices say that “The Dark Knight” has had so much success apparently due to the unfortunate death of Heath Ledger, and that fans have gone to see this movie as a tribute to him. One way or another, I was impressed with his performance, and I can say that to this moment I don’t think anyone else could have done a better job in his place. All the actors did a great job, and there quite a few big names in the cast such as Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, whose presence was a big plus. I also liked the action scenes during the last half hour of the movie, it got quite intense and the special effects were good. Still, what I liked most about the movie was the psychological side: the battle between good and evil, the power of fear, the nature of the human mind, the way through which even the best of men can fall when they are manipulated through fear and when their thirst for revenge is fueled. This side of the movie was wonderfully crafted, and the battle between Batman and the Joker transcended the normal “superhero comes storming in and deals with the bad guy”, it was much more, a battle of the mind, a battle of principles, a battle between chaos and order.

The con’s: well, the movie seemed to be a little slow paced. In the first half hour of the movie, I tended to get a little bored. There was too much time spent on building the story, introducing the characters. What is more, we didn’t get some real action scenes barely until the last hour of the movie, and, unlike other movies from the Batman series, we didn’t get to see so many gadgets and other stuff that Batman used. Another aspect is that the movie was quite long, 152 mins with few action scenes might tend to get a little boring, but to my mind the movie was saved by the excellent psychological battle. FInally, I think that the movie has been a little over rated. For example, it got 9.5 on IDMB and top 1 in the all time 250 best movies. Quite frankly, I didn’t get that “Oh my God this is the best movie I’ve seen in my entire life” feeling, it was ok, but it didn’t seem extraordinary. But maybe that’s just me, as I’ve already said, movies are subjective, and while I feel that the movie was just ok, maybe someone else is extatic about it.

To round up, I think that “The Dark Knight” was quite a good movie, with a good cast, a well crafted plot and a great representation of the psychological battle between chaos and order.

My rating: 9/10