I enjoyed Batman Begins a lot and Christopher Nolan is one of my favorite directors. So it’s no surprise that I had high expectations for the sequel. Luckily they were all met.

People mentioned this a lot, but this movie didn’t feel like a superhero, more like a crime movie. All the technology used by Batman is based on realistic technology, taken to their extreme.

There are so many characters in this story and they all play a role in the story. Alfred always makes me chuckle, his lines are very well written and delivered. Fox has a slightly smaller role here, but he does have a funny scene, and a moral dilemma at the end. Unfortunately that’s not explored much, there’s just too much going on.

Rachel doesn’t have a huge role, but she is key to Harvey and Batman’s relationship. Luckily Maggie Gyllenhal played this character in a believable way, her interrogation scenes don’t look ridiculously funny anymore.

Than we have the two villains, Joker and Harvey. I must say their roles in Gotham are very well defined, as well as defining Batman. This is to me the main strength of this story. Batman is the Dark Knight, Harvey is the White Knight. Both are needed by Gotham, both play a key role. Joker wants to upset their roles, he wants to create chaos. There’s not much reasoning behind him, which is what I like. We don’t need an origin for Joker, he’s just the Joker.

I’ll be SPOILING the story from now on, so if you haven’t watched it yet (hard to imagine) stop reading and go watch it now!

I loved how Joker wanted to prove that people are evil with the ferry scene, instead people proved him wrong. I must say I was completely shocked when the prisoner took the detonator and threw it out the window. That was a powerful scene.

However the Joker does win with Harvey, he managed to “convert” him in the hospital scene, which I have to re-watch again to really see if it works. I’m not totally convinced that it works. But what Harvey does after that scene is also not convincing to me. I can understand that he went after the corrupt police officers, but why go after Gordon’s family? That’s something I really didn’t get.

Rachel’s death was a shock to me, but it was a necessary death to change Harvey, and also to help Bruce continue on his path as Batman. Bruce was convinced that he could retire and be with Rachel, but he doesn’t know that Rachel already chose Harvey. Alfred decided that Bruce didn’t need to know the truth in order to continue. That’s what I call a meaningful death.

Gordon’s death was obviously a fake and I spotted it miles away. No way they would kill such an important character in the Batman mythology. Also Batman needs help from Gordon to fight crime. The ending was the moral high point for me. Batman has to take on the role of killer, even though he didn’t commit those crimes. He has to sacrifice his honor in order to give Gotham its White Knight.

I like that ending, though that means that Two Face doesn’t get to shine in a Batman movie. Some people believe that his story should have been told in the next movie, but I think he was needed here to give Joker his “victory”.

Which brings me to Heath Ledger, who was brilliant in this movie. I don’t know if this performance deserves an Oscar, but I was definitely entertained by him. I keep playing the scene where he walks out of the hospital, and tries to detonate the rest of the bombs. Just hilarious and scary at the same time.

The action scenes are all enjoyable, though some of them may have been too long, especially at the end: the big chase scene, and the scene in the building. They didn’t bother me though. I was just more interested in the character scenes. Overall a truly great movie.

Rating: 4 Stars