It’s been over 24 hours since I’ve seen The Dark Knight (I saw an early screening last night) and I still find myself thinking about it. I think it’s one of those movies that I like so much because it goes outside its genre. It’s like a psychological drama that just happens to have Batman in it.

I’ve heard people describe it as being like Michael Mann’s Heat, which is one of my favorite films, and I think that is pretty fair in some ways. But it’s also different.

Really, you could argue that The Dark Knight isn’t even about Batman. Instead it’s about a white knight’s fall from grace – since after all…

**********SPOILER ALERT BEYOND THIS POINT***********

…Harvey Dent’s story both begins and ends in this film, while Batman’s story started before and will continue after.

I think that’s a good way to frame superhero films, have a sub-story that is interesting to follow rather than just having a hero chase down a villain. That gets old after one film.

Something else I like to see in a superhero film is a bad guy that persists. That’s one reason why I like the X-Men films so much, Magneto is always there, he’s not so easy to kill off. The Joker could have been the equivalent in the Batman series – and maybe he still will be – but it’s too bad Heath Ledger will no longer be playing him.

Speaking of Ledger, what I’m going to say may be blasphemous to some, but I really believe he was better than Jack Nicholson at playing The Joker. Granted it’s been a while since I’ve seen the original Batman, but I remember while watching it, thinking the whole time, “here’s Jack Nicholson playing The Joker.” A great performance, but it never quite escaped Nicholson’s own wacky persona.

This new Joker however, had I not known it was Ledger playing him, I still might be guessing who it was – and I’m very good at that sort of thing. Ledger created a character that transcended himself as an actor. Granted, Ledger isn’t as well known as Nicholson, but he’s still pretty well known and I would have had no idea it was him.

It was a brilliant performance.

No idea who the villain will be in the 3rd one. I hope they try to work the Joker back in, even with another actor, but it will be hard to top Ledger. The obvious choices for a new villain might be the Penguin, but I actually might have liked Batman Returns more than the first Batman, and I think it would be too obvious to follow up the Joker Batman with the Penguin Batman just like the first last franchise did.

Third movies are hard. There have been quite a few sequels that many deem better than the original recently, X-Men 2, Spider-Man 2, even the second Fantastic Four was better than the first – though both were bad. Both X-Men 3 and Spider-Man 3 however were lackluster. The third Batman I think can avoid that because I have great faith in Christopher Nolan as a director – and it’s set up very well.