I must say that with all th hype regarding Heath Ledgers demise that I had made an assumption that all the accolades regarding his portrayal of the Joker were related to nostalgia for yet another young actor that had died too soon. This was an incorrect assumption, Heath Ledger is the Joker and I, like others I have read here, really enjoyed Nicholsons Joker and yet, I believe that Heath has taken the character to a new and very original level, too bad he will not be back. Unfortunately for me Christian Bale was not nearly as charismatic as I have seen in the previous Batman and even in other films like American Psycho where he was brilliant. Aaron Eckhart was passable as Harvey Dent would have like to have seen Katie Holmes reprise her role