In my neck of the woods, I've never, ever seen a theatre more than 70% of capacity. Ever. Not for any opening of any film. Period. Not Spider-Man, not Pirates. Nothing.
My theatre, which has it on two screens, was 95% or more filled.
It lived up to the hype. It surpassed it. It was brilliant.
Ledger's Joker owned. You actually did laugh at some of his hijinks, deadly as they may be. He was the perfect Joker, the perfect mad-man, the ultimate master of disaster and chaos. He was a perfectly dark funny psycho in every aspect of the word. If Ledger does not WIN an Oscar, it will be a crime against humanity. Nomination is not enough. He must WIN!
Despite reports of the film being not focused on Batman, it really was. Batman was the thread, the glue, that held the others together. Gordon, Dent and the Joker all had a good plot to themselves, but it was tied together by Batman. Everyone in the film got to do more, got to have more.
The look of Two-Face = spot on brilliant. The pictures that have been posted don't do it justice to seeing it. The action was brilliant and epic. The story was fantastic.
This is easily one of my favorite films of all time. It will take a few more viewings to decide if it is THE top film on my list.
As for the next films brilliant, I noticed something.
In Begins, when Bruce played drunk, he called everyone his "two-faced friends" - coincedence that Two-Face was in this film? Well, in this one, Lucious made a comment that the new suit should "hold up well against cats"...
Think about it.
Maybe...