We don't often review movies over here at the kids' table. But while the eagerly-anticipated Batman sequel The Dark Knight isn't really gay enough to cover over on our main page, over here on the blog things are just loosey-goosey enough to allow for this kind of thing. Being as how I know many of us hold a special place in our hearts for Heath Ledger, I thought I'd share my thoughts on the movie ... I won't get spoilery until the end and will give ample warning, so consider this a pretty safe read for those of you who don't want your Knight to be kept in the dark until showtime.

Here's the long and short of it: The Dark Knight is perhaps the greatest superhero movie ever made.

It is an epic, complicated, and relentlessly disturbing meditation on terror, fear, honor, and responsibility that grabs you in the opening scene and drags you by the throat through 150 minutes of intrigue, drama, and jaw-dropping action. From its grim palette to its wonderfully eerie minimalist score, everything about the film is a departure from what Hollywood has always told us a superhero film should be. This is something altogether more complex, more unsettling, and more rewarding.

The main reason that the film works is the performance of Heath Ledger as The Joker. It's simply riveting. After the carefully-crafted origin story of Batman Begins, director Christopher Nolan wisely shifts the focus off of the Pointy-Eared One and onto the villain who would make him fully realize his potential as Gotham's savior: the mysterious and horrifying Joker, whose refusal to compromise plays foil to Bruce Wayne's own internal conflict. And I cannot imagine that any other actor could have realized this part with the nuance, the bravado, and the sheer balls that Ledger brought to the role.

This is Ledger's film, start-to-finish. Which is interesting, considering that at no point do we actually learn anything whatsoever about the character that he plays beyond his simple philosophy: Chaos reigns. As he himself points out in an early scene, he's not crazy ... he simply has a singular desire: to see everything fall apart. And if that's crazy, then Batman must be crazy, too, because they are two sides of the same coin: Control ... and chaos.

Fittingly, the coin-flipping villain Two Face (nee Harvey Dent, played by Aaron Eckhart) enjoys the most satisfying character arc the film has to offer. We actually see the new District Attorney (Gotham's "White Knight") transform from the city's greatest hope to the city's greatest threat, a journey that further amplifies Batman's yin-yang relationship with The Joker.

What's really most impressive about The Dark Knight is its scope and scale, which makes even Batman Begins, which itself felt impossibly thorough and wonderfully grand in its exploration of the hero's origins, look like child's play by comparison. Batman Begins was literally the setup, and The Dark Knight is where the bat hits the fan. At the heart of the story is Gotham, in all its corrupt, overpopulated, mismanaged, crime-ridden glory. And Gotham is its focus through and through, as public servants fall prey to The Joker's plans, innocent civilians are transformed into gun-toting clowns, and, in the film's most harrowing sequence, two ferries loaded with citizens are asked to play jury, judge, and mass executioner.

I know that I called this the greatest superhero movie ever made, but it's almost inappropriate to call it a superhero movie at all. Sure, the most ambitious superhero movies (Spiderman, Iron Man, Superman) have wrestled with "big themes" like responsibility, family, and greed ... but not nearly to this extent. This is the anatomy of a society hobbled by corruption and driven by fear whose parallels to our own world are alarmingly tight. It's not about the suit, and it's not about the gadgets (although they're amazing), and it's not about the clown makeup (which is never explained, or even addressed): it's about the clash of good and evil and the sacrifices that those who protect the greater good make in order to keep order.

And it's wonderfully, exhaustingly thrilling. 

Okay, enough of that. On to the fun stuff! (More details after the break, but don't worry, nothing spoilery until a ways down...)

Folks who braved the multiplexes this weekend (with Iron Man raking in over $200 million in just four days, it must have been like a mini Comic Con at every concession stand across America) had the chance to catch the brand new trailer for The Dark Knight in all its creepy, explosion-happy glory.

The trailer is now online, and it's both reassuring to see that the Warners haven't tried to bury the performance of late, great Heath Ledger and undeniably disturbing to see the apparently troubled actor playing it convincingly unhinged in his final (and biggest) role.

How do folks feel about this one?