Overview: One of those rare flicks that lives up to the hype. Flashy. Imaginative. A lot of adventure and a few well-placed twists and turns. A speedy two-and-a-half hours. The late Heath Ledger’s performance is brilliant, arguably besting Jack Nicholson’s penultimate Joker of nearly two decades ago—but the cast as a whole is great (i.e., Ledger didn’t steal the show). The plot grows complicated—bordering on convoluted at times—but you still get the gist of things throughout...and that’s enough.

The Lowdown: Bruce Wayne/Batman (Christian Bale) is an outlaw in most Gotham City minds, no matter how many bad guys he puts away. But he has a few key allies, too: Police lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), and assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal)—and you can’t discount the steady loyalty of his butler Alfred (Michael Caine) and Bat-gear guru Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman). And the Dark Knight needs all the friends he can get to battle the id-obsessed, mind-infecting Joker. (As you no doubt have noticed via TV trailers, Ledger’s sloppy, faded clown makeup, yellow teeth, and greasy mop of hair add a ton to his wicked persona—and prove as effective as his acting chops in distancing him from previous, less-freaky Joker incarnations.)

Despite the team effort to thwart Joker, the movie’s villain has all but stuffed Gotham’s remaining underworld squad in his back pocket—and, as it turns out, some folks you wouldn’t expect. So the stakes are high, and the odds quickly stack in Joker’s favor. Adding to the intrigue is D.A. Dent’s out-of-court relationship with Dawes, who was once Wayne’s main squeeze. Dent is a straight-shooting, crusading good guy (but not annoyingly so in Eckhart’s capable hands), and this isn’t lost on Wayne/Batman. Over the course of several climactic plot twists and suspenseful scenes, choices and sacrifices are made, and they sport an equal measure of good and bad outcomes—definitely not par for the course when it comes to superhero yarns.

Teachable Moments: The Dark Knight’s watchword for discussion starters is sacrifice. Take a climactic scene shared by Dent and Dawes, both of whom are facing an equal measure of danger, which demonstrates Christ’s challenge to lay down our lives for our friends. There’s also a suspense-filled scenario where the Joker gives two passenger ferries (one full of citizens; the other full of convicts) the option to blow up the other boat to guarantee their own safety. Toward the end of the movie, an enraged, “had it up to here” Dent does an about face, shall we say, which demonstrates the potential weaknesses in the strongest among us, as well as the price of vengeance. Further, Alfred’s and Fox’s subservience to Wayne ends when they sense he needs the straight scoop from mouths and minds bearing more wisdom than he’s yet garnered.

The Joker also creates a teachable moment in and of himself as a villain with no motive, no demands, no reason—as Alfred opines to Wayne: “Some men just want to watch the world burn.” While unfortunately true, the question remains: How do Christians respond to evil that knows no limits and has no remedy?

Viewer Discretion: No sex, no nudity, no drugs, a few scenes with alcohol as an also-ran element, very little cursing. There’s violence aplenty, however. Lots of guns and knives and hand-to-hand combat—yet very little blood. Joker’s sadistic bent in some instances is particularly harrowing (he especially enjoys putting doomed folk on camera to read his latest maniacal declarations to the public—not unlike what we’ve seen on the news over the last five years, which may prove unsettling for some).

General Appeal: With its record-breaking $155.3 opening weekend at the box office, including an opening-day record $67.85 million in receipts—besting marks previously held by Spider-Man 3 just a year ago—the general appeal of The Dark Knight is obvious. Its length and intensity may not add up to the wisest evening out with your kids, but there are a lot of applicable scenes for youth ministry purposes whether you hit the theater or the DVD racks in a few months.

The Final Grade: Entertainment value - A; ministry value  - B