Today, we finally went to see the movie “Batman: The Dark Knight.” We weren’t sure if our daughter can handle the violence but we went anyway. We had a hard time keeping her staying in her seat.

The movie was way too long. It seems so many characters were added in to make the movie longer than necessary, e.g. Harvey Dent, the two-face villain seems to be two-for-the-price-of-one villain. Is it necessary? Probably not. But it makes the love triangle among Bruce Wayne, Rachel, and Harvey, a bit more interesting.

The Joker was portrayed by Heath Ledger, his last performance before his sudden death on January 22, 2008, just a few months before the premier of this movie. Joker seems to be the ultimate nemesis for the Batman that almost results in his turning himself in. The Joker is particular adept at pushing people’s buttons and bringing out people’s weaknesses or simply inherent human weaknesses. For example, he uses the prisoner dilemma game when he set up the two fairy boats to face the threat being blown apart if they don’t take the first action. He also pushes Harvey Dent to become a villain from a go-by-the-book city attorney. Joker has a couple of good lines. I particular like “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Isn’t that the truth? Sooner or later, people will find faults in you and bring out the worst in you. Batman is the classic example.

I didn’t care for the constant blow-up of bomb, car wrecks, fire on money, hospital’s being blown up, Rachel’s being blown up, and etc. There seems to be non-stop destructions in the movie. Joker seems to have more resources than the entire Gothem police department.

The Batman has a few new tricks up his sleeves like the dog-proof suit in keeping with the spirit of “continuous improvement,” and the ability for the computer to track all of the cell phone call conversation on the fly. The Batmobile was crashed and self destructed but the Batmotorcyle was equally impressive – just like a video game.

Overall, I rate this Batman movie a ‘B’. The wonderful acting of Joker makes his character quite believable and I actually feel sorry for him, being a freak among his organized-crime friends. There is a couple of good twists like Gordon’s fake death and his saving Batman’s life, and fact that people don’t want to blow the other people us give us a glimmer of hope for humanity, contrary to Joker’s belief.