When Heath Ledger died early this year, I was deeply disturbed by his death.  I surprised myself by the strength of my sadness.  What made it so difficult to accept his untimely death was my sense that this extraordinary talent could have mesmerized us for decades to come with his acting skills. The best thing about The Dark Knight is Ledger’s performance. How can a twenty-eight-year-old play the Joker, who has a much older persona? Having seen all few the recent spider man movies, I felt the Dark Knight breaks little new ground except for being much darker than any of the other films in this genre. Running 152 minutes, I left the theatre feeling overwhelmed by the seemingly never-ending battle scenes between good and evil. The plot could have been streamlined by an hour without losing anything.