An apt title

The follow-up to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight is dark indeed. It's darker than the darkly lit darkness on a dark dark night.

It's the stuff black holes are made of.

It's also quite good.

I only make a big deal out of the dark material as my son is excited about Batman, but I really don't think he's ready for this heavy of a movie yet.

This installment takes the brooding aspects of the first film, amplifies those a bit, then trims back on the lighter moments giving us a story that gets down to business and then stays there.

The opening act introduces us to two characters at opposite ends of the behavioral spectrum. On one side we have ambitious straight-arrow district attorney Harvey Dent (Eckhart), intent on cleaning up Gotham's streets right down the last crooked con. Providing balance in this universe is The Joker (Ledger) who is a criminal with no particular motive other than being the best...er, worst criminal he can be. Money? Bah! He operates on the cheap and off the cuff. Chaos and disarray are his rewards, and he seeks those rewards with great enthusiasm. Gyllenhaal replaces Katie Holmes as "Rachel Dawes, the character who simply must be there for some reason, but who really isn't as consequential as the story would try to get us to believe."

Between Dent's goodness and the Joker's badness, Batman fills the void weaving back and forth across that fine line of morality. The story is pretty tight and told and acted well. There was a point where I was sure we were winding up to the dramatic conclusion only to get past that hurdle to continue the climb.

The acting was universally really good. Bale manages to kick a fair bit of butt while allowing Batman to be a little vulnerable. Ledger fulfills the creepy promise of clowns worldwide by practically oozing droplets of evil. Eckhart was a great choice for Dent and really owned the role, and the smaller bits by Caine and Freeman were good too. For what it's worth, Gyllenhaal did a fine job I guess. It just felt like her role was added in there because somebody thought it should be. There's just enough Rachel Dawes to be significant to the plot, but not enough to really have her character involved. It was odd. Normally it would bug me that they swapped out the actress, but her face-time was so limited that I just didn't care.

Overall it's a really good movie, it's just really dark. I wouldn't have minded some more lighter moments sprinkled in there to bring the mood up just a bit, but the storytelling was really good just the same. I'd recommend watching it, but do review it first before introducing it to your children.