Against all odds, Heath Ledger’s performance lives up to the incredible hype it’s been receiving for months.  As a newly-reimagined Joker, he’s amazingly menacing, creepy, and even complex.

The rest of the movie is terrific as well.  Though it’s a bit long, the length allows it time to get into moral territory that’s surprisingly sophisticated for any American movie, much less a summer superhero blockbuster.

Another triumph is that, unlike too many of today’s overblown CGI extravaganzas, the special effects in the movie truly serve the story and the action, not the other way around.  There’s none of that fake-looking crap like you got with Spiderman flying around Manhattan like a deranged drillbit (thanks to Amy Hohn for the analogy).

Only one thing seriously bothered me about The Dark Knight, but it bothered me a lot.  It’s the same thing that bothered me in Batman Begins.  That’s the stupid, childish, fake, overly-gutteral voice Christian Bale puts on whenever he’s in the batsuit.  It’s just dumb, and totally unnecessary.  I can’t believe the talented director, Christopher Nolan, thought it worked, because it doesn’t.

But everything else in the movie does, especially the wall-to-wall acting, which is uniformly better than you’re supposed to get in movies like this.  Kudos to Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman and my girlfriend Maggie Gyllenhaal.

By the way.  See it in Imax.  Trust me.