The Dark Knight

Spanks - 5

Director - Christopher Nolan

Writers - Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer

Starring - Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, & Maggie Gyllenhaal

Release Date - 18 July 2008

MPAA Rating - PG-13

You might be thinking The Dark Knight to be another comic book movie, in the age of comic book summer movies blockbusters. It is much more than that. Unlike the Batman films of the 20th century, Christopher Nolan made his Batman world very real looking and nothing looks comicy. The film is the film of the summer if not 2008, comic book movie or not. If you go see one movie this summer it should be this one. If you didn't like Batman Begins because it cut between 4 different time periods, you don't have to worry because this one is linear from start to finish.

People say its doing so well is because it is Heath Ledger's final completed film (you will see him next year in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus) and that is why its doing so well. His performance of The Joker is perfect, much better than Jack Nicholson and before seeing The Dark Knight I did not think that was possible. He is totally psychotic but very funny and likeable (if that is possible). See if for that performance alone if you need a reason to go see a comic book film.

Another thing I love about Christopher Nolan is that everything looks real. That is because it is real. No cheesy computer special effects like you see at some point in all action movies. The truck they flip that you can see in the trailer, they really flipped it. No crappy green screen backgrounds or fake fire or explosions either. He is standing on the top of a skyscraper and they blew up a building.

I wanted to see it in IMAX, but it was sold out until Friday (7/23/08). Hopefully there will be some open shows next week. The reason being is that parts of the film were filmed with an IMAX camera. All the movies that have been on IMAX up until now have been shot on 35mm and blown up to IMAX size.