This is a movie that lives up to the hype, even without the full IMAX Experience treatment. Right now, it’s a 9.6/10 at IMDB, a 94% at Rotten Tomatoes, and a (surprisingly low) 82/100 at Metacritic. Scores like that tend to make me cautious because it raises expectations to an unreasonable level.

To be sure, you shouldn’t go into this movie expecting it to be perfect. It isn’t. It’s still the best action movie this summer, and arguably the best Batman movie ever. Thanks to Heath Ledger’s amazing performance as the Joker, solid performances by the rest of the cast, and a story that’s deeper than most of the Marvel movies, this movie delivers action and characters so well that I want to see the movie again.

It’s hard to describe what makes Heath Ledger’s performance so good. His character is disturbed but brilliant, a smart but crazy villain. While Jack Nicholson’s Joker was a bit whimsical, this Joker is pathological. Simply put, you don’t figure him out even until the very end. He is written as an anarchist, interested in the battle against Batman, not the winning. Chaos is his goal, nothing more, but he introduces it in a systemic, organized way. Some of the movie’s most interesting themes is how the Joker introduces chaos by using society’s rules against itself. I can’t go into more without giving away chunks of the plot and I really don’t want to do that. Simply put, Ledger is brilliant and runs with the script and makes it fly.

I really do mean to compare this DC Comic story against the Marvel movies that have come out this summer. Iron Man was a fun movie, and the first Spider Man movie with Tobey Maguire had a solid story, but this movie explores the Batman character better than any movie before it. There’s a central portion of the movie that’s quite dense, mostly dialogue and examination of whether Batman is truly helping Gotham. This question of Batman’s purpose is central to the movie, and it doesn’t distract, because it’s woven so well into the overall story.

This is still an action movie, however, and there’s where most of the minor flaws show up. The Bat Pod is stupid. Seriously. And there’s a big sequence, parts of which have been in the trailers, that doesn’t live up to the standard set by the acting and the story. Decent stuff, not great.

Beyond that, the Illinois-like Gotham plates on some of the cars was annoying, especially since the film was clearly shot in Chicago (is it bad that I can recognize a city from the bridges shown over rivers?). Every time a plate came into view, I kept trying to read whether it said Illinois at the top. Maggie Gyllenhal was a less ideal Rachel Dawes than Katie Holmes, but Aaron Eckhart is perfect as Harvey Dent.

That’s pretty much all I’ve got. Go see this movie! It’s awesome. (even Heidi liked it!)