oh, what a travesty! i was pretty jacked up to see this, but it failed on a number of fronts. definitely, Ledger's work was admirable, as was all the work of the estimable cast, but nothing could save the poor, poor directorship/editing of this abysmal cookie-cutter, video-game, i-don't-know-what of a movie... what a disappointment! i can't blv what an appalling lack of understanding of story-telling the director (C. Nolan) showed, after such brilliant work as "Memento", etc.; i can't blv it's the same guy! honestly, i fwd'd through the last 1/3 of the movie... was it really just 2 1/2 hours? and i LOVE long movies, as long as they use the time to develop character/plot/etc... but this was just such a mish-mash of images, effects, bla-bla-bla, that i couldn't care less, as much as i wanted to respect Ledger's last work. what a shame. 9 out of 10 stars, on average?!? ugh. i think we've got a generation raised on video-games, unable to distinguish between flashy scenes of fire and throatily-delivered dialogue and true, developed story. sigh..... :(