I went to see The Dark Knight last night, and I would be failing in my duties as prima blogger if I did not give some thoughts, so here they are in a nutshell.

The Dark Knight

PG-13

Critics: A-

Miles: B

First off, let me say that this is a good, solidly entertaining movie that is probably worth $9 at the theater. Still, I'm not planning to watch it again or go out and buy it for my collection.

Here are the 3 things that everyone is saying about the movie and my responses:

1) the movie has a very dark tone or mood.

I agree that this is more dark than previous Batman films, but it is not overly dark. To give you an idea I would mark this as lighter than 12 Monkey's (one of my personal favorites), but darker than Empire Strikes Back.

2) the movie is long.

It is quite long, and there is a point with about an hour left, when I thought it was winding down, but then it picked up again. But really, the movie was entertaining enough to keep me interested, and so I didn't notice it being longer than the typical flick.

3) Heath Ledger's performance was great.

Yes, the mood of the movie is carried by Ledger's Joker, and Heath broken new ground by making the Joker more of a true psychopath and less of a cartoonish boogie man. But still, I think I would rank Ledger's Joker well behind several of the other great movie villains of our generation, including Darth Vader, the T-1000, Hannibal Lechter, and even Agent Smith. Where would you guys rank the Joker?

I guess I would summarize this review by saying that this was a good summer movie but it misses where all summer action flicks miss--by not developing the deeper human dimensions. They could have done so much more with Harvey Dent. The film glossed over the choices people made regarding doing the right thing in desperate times. And the provocative allusions to privacy vs. power in the face of terrorism are just swept under the rug.

Perhaps The Dark Knight wasn't trying to do those things, which is fine, but that places a self-imposed ceiling on its greatness.