I thought this was much darker than "Batman Begins" and closer to the spirit of the contemporary comic book version.

They did much more action scenes to this film because of complaints about a lack of action in Batman Begins, but the psychological drama that is taking place was fascinating.

Unlike a lot of films where the villan actually becomes likeable, Ledger created a character that made your skin crawl whenever he was on screen. You did not feel sorry for him.

What I also enjoyed was the fact that most of the stunts were NOT CGI effects. The director wanted to capture an essence of realism so when you see something blow up, it was actually blown up.

Brilliant movie!