the dark knight: the imax experience (nolan, 2008)

here's the thing: in 2003, the moment batman begins ended--which, up until that point, had been by far the best superhero film ever made--i declared my unbelievable excitement to see the next installment in the series, this one set to feature the joker. for a few years i let it fester, realizing that there was no way in hell the movie that was sure to come would live up to expectations. then in december 2007 i went to see i am legend in imax--for the sole reason that i had heard i'd get to see the first 10 minutes of this batman movie as part of the previews. the first ten minutes being as unbelievable as they were, i got even more excited. then heath ledger died. all of a sudden, this movie was the biggest thing to ever hit theaters. now the rest of the world's excitement was almost at the same level as mine (even though i stand by the fact that even without ledger's death the movie would have reached this level of hype--it'd have just taken a few more months). then, finally, people staretd to see it. and love it. absolutely love it. summer-blockbuster-oscar-talk love it--which doesn't happen very often. finally, july came. and finally i got to see just how close the dark knight would come to my impossibly lofty expectations.

it blew them away.

heath ledger blew my expectations away.

the movie blew all expectations away.

this was without a doubt the greatest superhero movie of all time, the greatest blockbuster of all time, and most probably the greatest action of all time. by some accounts--imdb's top 250 ratings being one of them--this is the grestest movie of all time. while i'd say it's too early for me to agree with that, i'd be hard pressed to call that a stupid claim.

oh. my. god.

modern classics scale: 10/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/