(4.5 out of 5 stars)

The sequel to Batman Begins is everything a superhero movie sequel or movie sequel should be and more. What worked in Batman Begins also works in this movie; this is a serious crime movie with much less of a comic book feel.  Everything could actually happen (except for maybe a few stunts).  A movie like this is hard to review because it is just that good and summer popcorn movies are never of this high quality.

The movie does live up to the hype.  One could say this movie was overhyped, but surprisingly, there is no let down from the hype.  Let’s start by discussing Heath Ledger. Simply put, this is the best performance I have ever seen in a big budget action movie.  It can be compared to those nice subtle performances in independent films or characters like Forrest Gump and Braveheart that were crowd pleasers as well as well acted roles. The Joker, played by Ledger, is the best Joker ever created, as well as one of the, if not the best, movie villain ever portrayed.  People spoke of Javier Bardem last year in No Country for Old Men and sure he was good, a heartless killer, but Ledger as the Joker, is a psychotic madman.  He uses specific ticks, an original voice, cackles, facial movements and expressions and even a specific walk to create a character that if we did not know was Ledger.  In my estimation, no one would be able to guess that the Joker was played by him.  Also, this has nothing to do with Ledger’s unfortunate death.  This is an award winning role.  If he is not nominated or given the award, it will be a travesty.  Even if he were alive, I would be stating the same thing.  Ledger’s Joker commands presence, attention by all characters, as well as an uncomfortableness to the viewer.  I would melt into butter if I met this character on the street in broad daylight.

So what about the rest of the characters?  Gary Oldman as Lieutenant Gordon, Aaron Eckhart as District Attorney Harvey Dent, Michael Cane as Alfred, Morgan Freeman as Lucious Fox, and Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne all were superb in their roles.  No one was Oscar worthy, but were excellent in their roles.  Maggie Gyllenhal who plays Rahcel Dawes was a step up from Katie Holmes, but did not really have much to do in the film. Gary Oldman is really perfectly cast as the Lieutenant soon to be Commissioner, and really so is everyone else.  If anything, Christian Bale slightly overacts his Batman portion of his role, and unfortunately for him, the actors are so good in this movie that they all overshadow Bale and take the movie away from him.

The intense music plays a key part in allowing this movie to progress forward for two and a half hours.  For the most part, this movie has enough to keep you going the entire time, but if I have to explain why I rated this a 4.5 out of 5 instead of a 5, I would say at one point during an action sequence I felt like the movie was long, but this was one moment, and really is just nit-picking.  Using Chicago as Gotham City I believe works for the movie.  We don’t have a set that looks like a comic book or a sound stage.  We have a dark brooding city hoping to someday escape the crime that has become Gotham mostly all due to political corruption and the Scarecrow from movie one who basically intoxicates the criminals of Gotham with a psycho spray that changes them forever.

So how do you follow up a sequel like this?  First of all, this sequel delivers what Spiderman and others did not. It delivers a brand new story borrowing ever so slightly from the first movie and gives you something with little back story and little connection to the original and actually easily stands on its own.  You don’t have to see the first movie to see all the connections in the second because frankly, few connections exist, which make this movie a breath of fresh air and hopefully shows Hollywood how to make a real sequel.  So, easily, this movie shows how you can do at least one more, but how do you top a character like the Joker?  Whether he dies or not (see the movie and find out for yourself), it doesn’t matter.  We know Scarecrow is still alive, but we don’t need to see him again.  You don’t have to kill the supporting characters. You can easily just focus on a new bad guy in town whether it is the Riddler, Penguin, or some other Bat villain. No matter what happens to the Joker, you can’t use him again because Ledger is the only one that could play him and his unfortunate demise would prevent that from happening.

Christopher Nolan, who wrote and directed this movie and its original, is the only one that can bring a third movie to the big screen.  He will know how to write a sequel that can be just as compelling as The Dark Knight.  It will be a massive challenge to match this masterpiece, but he has proven through movies like Memento and The Prestige that he is up for the challenge.  He may have saved the Batman franchise with his reinvention of the series and he just may have saved Hollywood from becoming a place that no longer makes amazing summer movies.  He has shown all other directors of summer fare like McG, Michael Bay, Rob Cohen, and Stephen Summers just what a summer movie blockbuster should be.

Similar recommended titles: Batman Begins and any other Christopher Nolan movie