in the rush to bow down to the heath ledger hype, we think it's important to point out something that everyone else seems to have missed: aaron eckhart turns in a performance as harvey dent/two face that is every bit the equal of heath ledger's joker.we're not trying to take anything away from ledger - his joker is, indeed, a riveting and deeply disturbing character. but the joker is, for all practical purposes, static. he is the same man at the end of dark knight as at the beginning, but harvey dent is not. eckhart's portrayal of a truly good man who becomes a monster, inside and out, is a nuanced, painful journey. it is disturbingly easy to see ourselves in dent's shoes. unfortunately (and even at more than 2 and 1/2 hours), his story is cut too short. we could easily have sat through 3 hours of storytelling this good.
so, if you're one of the 2 people that haven't seen it yet, see it. the script is tight, the cast is excellent (bale isn't given much to do, but that's a truism of bat-flicks; they've always been more about the villains, and we were getting a might tired of his bat-rasp, anyway), and it is, if anything, better than the first film in the current series, with none of the cliches and smarmy sound-bytes that kept getting in the way last time around.
there is a well-played sub-story about privacy, responsibility, and the limitations of power (even well-intentioned power) that we found interesting, too. it was a bit rushed, but it's still cerebral fare for a guys-in-tights movie - especially when compared to the other superhero flicks we've seen this summer. and the ending gives us a good reason to look forward to the next nolan flick. (and - since dark knight made back its production cost of us$158 million in its opening weekend alone - we can rest assured that there will, indeed, be a sequel.)
we can only hope that watchmen is handled half as well. (in case you haven't heard, the watchmen preview runs in front of dark knight. it's pretty to look at, but looking back at the long list of those who have attempted to bring watchmen to the screen, we'll reserve our judgement until we see it beginning to end.)