Batman Begins was one of the best superhero movies coming form DC based comic. However its sequel, The Dark Knight is an insanely great movie by itself.

This time it is not an origin movie. They already established Batman’s origin on Batman Begins, with The Dark Knight you jumped right into the action.

In The Dark Knight, Batman raises the stakes in his war against organize crime and corruption. With the help of Lieutenant Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent the three of them set their plan in motion in cleaning up Gotham city of crime lords. All went well until The Joker makes his appearance and the madness begins.

One thing for sure, The Joker stole this movie from Batman. This movie could easily be The Joker’s movie. Batman, with all his fancy high-tech gadgets are made to feel like a secondary character.

I had already prepared myself of how over hyped the performance of Heath Ledger as The Joker, before coming into this movie. Since he had passed away I thought he’d be getting rave reviews and that they will give out Oscar nomination out of sympathy or sentimentality.

But nothing could prepare me for what Heath Ledger did playing as The Joker. I was completely blown away by his performance. It is like nothing I had ever seen in a comic based movie villain.

He is completely believable as The Joker. At all time, he was relentlessly disturbing and nightmarishly frightening. There were no moments where you’d think that he is just another actor wearing a clown mask or another actor with white makeup on his face. He is THE JOKER. The performance of a lifetime.

The Joker is scary yet funny. Whenever he enters into a scene, it send chills across my spine, and then he said something smart and makes a joke. Whenever The Joker did his thing with his knifes, the tension and suspense builds up, and when the moment you aspect a climax, he makes a joke. That is how The Joker is.

During the final part of the movie, The Joker was hanging upside down and was talking to Batman. As The Joker utters the words, “You know, we could do this forever, you and I”, I almost shed a tear. Do to the circumstances, with Heath Ledger being dead and all, I know that this can never happen no matter how hard I wish this could.

On January 22, 2008, Ledger was found unconscious in his fourth-floor loft apartment. The report later revealed that the cause of death is from an accidental prescription drug overdose. Ledger died at age 28.

The whole movie doesn’t feel like a ’superhero’ movie. It is more of an epic crime drama film. It’s more like the Michael Mann’s 1995 movie, Heat, where master mind criminals versus master mind cops. You see how Batman outsmarts The Joker’s plan only to be outsmarted again by the Joker.

There are some really intense scene in movie The Dark Knight, but it is not the fight scene or the chase scene. Superb performance from the cast makes a scene intense, without the need to throw punches. The same intense moments you get in movies like The Departed, the Hollywood remake of an Hong Kong epic crime-triller movie, The Infernal Affairs.

The overall performance from the rest of the cast also was good. I think Gary Oldman did a good job at being Jim Gordon. This time we got to see more of Gordon as he progressively becomes Commissioner Gordon.

Michael Caine is full of sarcastic wit as Bruce’s loyal butler, Alfred. Morgan Freeman radiates tough wisdom as Lucius Fox, the scientist who designs those awesome gadgets for Batman. Aaron Eckhart, as Harvey Dent was great in his transformation to Harvey Two-Face.

Two-Face looked wicked!

I’ve heard great review from those who had seen The Dark Knight on IMAX. Part of the movie was shot in full IMAX. I plan to go and see The Dark Knight again this weekend, this time in IMAX.