.: ShaolinTiger - Kung-Fu Geekery :.

Batman and James Gordon join forces with Gotham's new District Attorney, Harvey Dent, to take on a psychotic bank robber known as The Joker, whilst other forces plot against them, and Joker's crimes grow more and more deadly.

Honestly I think Christopher Nolan can do no wrong....he's only made 8 movies and 3 are in the top 250 on IMDB...and I'm guessing this will make it 4 (Memento, The Prestige and Batman Begins).

He's back again to take us on another rollercoaster, Batman Begins was hailed as one of the best superhero movies of all time and it really returned to the roots of Gotham City..dark, brooding, nasty and violent. The character of Bruce Wayne was captured by a fantastic Christian Bale - he's fast becoming one of the best actors around.

And this...The Dark Knight, just rocks in and blows you away. It's sad, truly sad that Heath Ledger is gone and I would be surprised if he doesn't nail an Oscar for his performance...he's truly terrifying, unhinged and totally believable as the joker. It's hands down one of the best performances in any movie I've ever seen. RIP Heath, you surely went out with a bang.

This movie delves deep into the character of Batman and Bruce Wayne, his own flaws and how the Joker desires to make him look at himself and why he does it - does he have a deep down loathing for society? It's a character study and a gripping one at that. The cinematography is perfect along with the sound-track - it really takes you there.

The Batpod comes out, and it's awesome! Christian Bale is great as Bruce Wayne and Batman, although the spotlight isn't on him so much in this movie.

Maggie Gyllenhaal was better than Katie Holmes in Batman Begins....but still not the strongest player in the movie.

The rest of the regulars put in great performances (Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman). Not sure about Aaron Eckhart still..The Scarecrow made a very brief entrance too, but wasn't really part of the movie.

The movie was long, and in places it felt it - this would be my one and only complaint. If not for that it's near perfection. This is the most I've written about a movie for a long time and I definitely have to get a BluRay version of this to watch on a huge HD projector at some time in the future.

I give it a dark and dastardly 9/10, definitely close to being best movie of the year.

I still feel elite as I saw this movie on Tuesday...and IMDB still doesn't have a rating because not enough people have watched it!

"Children of Men" envisages a world one generation from now that has fallen into chaos on the heels of an infertility defect in the population. The world's youngest citizen has just died at 18, and humankind is facing the likelihood of its own extinction. Set against a backdrop of London torn apart by violence and warring nationalistic sects, "Children of Men" follows an unlikely champion of Earth's survival: Theo (Owen), a disillusioned ex-activist turned bureaucrat, who is forced to face his own demons and protect the planet's last remaining hope

Wow, I can't believe I missed this one. Picked it up after some of the Ocean's 13 crew mentioning that Clive Owen was the man and everyone should see Children of Men.

I can't say I've even heard of this movie before that...and I have no idea why.

I was somewhat expecting a depressing drama kind of thing...but this, this is a stunning film, definitely the best post-apocalyptic rendition of London, rather than the mini-USA rendered in V for Vendetta. It's banged straight in at #125 on IMDB's Top 250 Movies!

It somewhat loosely based on a 1992 novel of the same name by P.D. James, I haven't read the book so I can't really judge on that part.

Clive Owen is really good as Theo and he is at his drunken, ruffled, depressed best he holds the movie all through along with relative newcomer Claire-Hope Ashitey as Kee.

It certainly is a fast paced thriller, it slows down at time for some character development and introduction of gems like Michael Caine's pot smoking hippy friend and the old-flame Julianne Moore.

The film doesn't let you go with the bombing at the beginning all the way through the twists and turns to the epic 30 minute battle at the end. It has many facets aswell as a socio-political commentary, it echoes some modern events, but does so subtly enough that it does distract from the main story. It also has some nice references to pink floyd, the current immigration problems in various countries (especially UK), homeland security and a few others.

The soundtrack is something else aswell, totally nuts.

Film wise, it's beautiful shot with some extremely long continuous takes adding to the tension and most of the film was shot in natural light giving it an extremely realistic feel. It reminds me in some ways of 28 days later - the sequel of which I missed due to the fact they decided to only show it at 3pm.

It's so un-Hollywood as well, like the scene with the blood on the camera, Hollywood would have cleaned that shit off.

I'm really glad to see people still can make good, moving films...

I suggest everyone go see this, NOW.

I give it a resounding 9.5/10.

A mysterious story of two magicians whose intense rivalry leads them on a life-long battle for supremacy -- full of obsession, deceit and jealousy with dangerous and deadly consequences. From the time that they first met as young magicians on the rise, Robert Angier and Alfred Borden were competitors. However, their friendly competition evolves into a bitter rivalry making them fierce enemies-for-life and consequently jeopardizing the lives of everyone around them. Set against the backdrop of turn-of-the-century London.

I'll say straight up this is probably the best movie of the year so far without much competition, it's been a pretty bad year for movies all in all after 2005 which has a clean sweep of great movies, 2006 performed pretty badly, a good sign before watching this movie was the extremely strong 8.2 at IMDB.

It lived up to expectations! KY even joined us to watch it for the second time.

This is a truly allstar cast mixing new talent with old, pitting Hugh Jackman (Robert Angier) and Christian Bale (Alfred Borden) against each other is a work of genius, both have already proved themselves with movies such as X-men and Batman Begins and even more so for Bale with the haunting The Machinist.

The sparks really fly between them, imagine turn of the century magicians fighting for audiences and fame, Bale (Borden) is the technical expert, the magical genius, but his showmanship lacks the pull to bring audiences..Where as Jackman (Angier) is the opposite, suave, charming and the superior showman, but his tricks are lacking, his technical knowledge and innovation aren't matching Bale.

Michael Caine of course puts in a stirling performance with his strong screen prescence, a lesser actor would have paled in this supporting role.

David Bowie pops up too, did you spot him?

I can't really talk about the story without ruining it, just watch out for the the pledge, the turn and finally the prestige. You do have to suspend belief a bit though, it's not a real story, it has elements of fantasy or sci-fi and stars some great scientists from the same period.

The cinematography, set design, production and direction are top notch, the pacing of the movie is excellent and has multiple narrators, so you see the same things from various views. It's a dark brooding movie showing the nasty side of human nature.

Christopher Nolan is really showing us what he's capable of with Memento, Batman Begins, Insomnia and now this!

Just go and watch this movie now.

I give it a film of the year 9/10.

When fate prevents him from avenging the deaths of his parents, young Bruce Wayne (Bale) flees to Asia where he seeks counsel from a dangerous ninja cult leader known as Ra's al Ghul (Watanabe). When he returns, Bruce finds that Gotham City has become overrun with crime and corruption, and that there are forces at work trying to remove him from his inherited place as the owner of Wayne Industries. Discovering a cave under Wayne Manor, Bruce assumes a new identity as a secret detective and guardian of the people of Gotham City against the criminals that plague them...

Batman has gone back to it's roots, this is a gritty, dark movie with an impoverished crime ridden Gotham dominated by drug lords, evil-doers and corrupt officials.

There is a star studded cast, I was like, wow another famous person, and another and another and another (Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Ken Watanabe), and so many brits?!

It's already hoisted itself into the number 64 spot on the top 250 in the first week!

Not surprisingly it's a far far better movie than the previous few lame Batman attempts (Batman and Robin, Batman Forever *yawn). It's actually a good movie.

The original Batman was a classic! All the back from 1989. With Jack Nicholson as the joker. After that was Batman Returns in 1992, with Michelle Pfeieffer as Catwoman...meow! I loved that, but the film itself wasn't so great. Both were pretty gritty, dark movies, staying in line with the original comics, Batman Returns was a bit cheesier, after that it went downhill fast with Mr Freeze..

What most people don't realise is a lot of these comics are actually very violent and adult in nature addressing serious issues in a form more acceptable to the mainstream..

The action through-out was great, good fight scenes, nice gadgets, nice introduction to all the things we know so well about Batman.

The only thing that ruined it for me, was as usual the hotdog cheese American lovey dovey suck my hairy nut sack ending, SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS..

Anyway, if you haven't, go and watch it.

I give it a good 8/10 (9 if it wasn't for the ending).