Laura Smith

Here is my 2 cents...before seeing this movie, I read up on the reviews, some of which was so negative it almost steered me away from watching it. I think maybe some of the negative reviews stem from the idea that superhero/super villain movies really have only one purpose, which is to solely entertain. Most all of them are so grandiose, completely unrealistic and over the top that they have a tendency to remove a lot of humanistic quality from the characters/plot. And we enjoy them for that very reason, because they elevate any human condition with super human qualities that ignites our imagination with excitement and awe. Don’t get me wrong, I like to be entertained from time to time, to be carried away into another world that these movies so often do for us. This isn’t one of those movies. If you’re looking to be “entertained”, you may end up being disappointed. This movie was incredibly raw, painfully humanistic, and captures the fragility of the human mind, in my opinion, with unparalleled success. Bottom line, I think it was brilliantly done, and Joaquin’s performance rivals that of Heath Ledger. I mean that with utmost respect, as I didn’t think that could be achieved until now. Somehow, this movie transforms the Joker from a fictional super villain to a human being, one that is not all that hard to identify with. Maybe the idea of that scares some critics, maybe scares most of us and so we choose to avoid considering how easily circumstance can unravel the mind, and the dark places that that unravelling can lead to. This is hands down one of the best movies I have ever seen. If you allow it to, it has the ability to replace the anticipated “wonder and awe” with a dark reality and shock that is just as potent and mind bending.