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It's arguably the most anticipated movie of the last five summers—the second installment of a rare franchise resuscitation, helmed by a maverick suspense master with nary a misfire to a short but stellar career. Weak links would be replaced. Tragedy would strike. And then a lucky few got to see it, instantly dislodging an avalanche of superlatives. The Dark Knight has, until now, been enjoying the best advance word-of-mouth of any release in a surprisingly bountiful mind-candy season that included Iron Man and Wall-E. In fact, it's until only recently been coasting at an astonishing 100% Rotten Tomatoes score. What changed? Two Daves of note filed their pans: The New Yorker's David Denby (who just lavished his highest praise upon Hancock, so take that for what it's worth), and New York's Dave Edelstein. The cumulative effect of the Dave-naysaying? A sizable dent in the dark armor, with the movie's RT score tumbling to 88% at post time. As for our worst fears—that Ledger isn't posthumously Oscar-worthy, just hammy from the grave—Edelstein confirms every last one of them after the jump. We're seeing it tomorrow, after which we'll try to get our Defamer Instant Review up as quickly as possible, for those who are just dying to know how categorically good this movie is, in easy-to-digest IM format.

He bugs his eyes and licks compulsively at the gashes that extend his mouth. He tries on different voices. First he sounds like Cagney in White Heat, then slides into a prissy singsong like Al Franken's Stuart Smalley, then throws in some fruity Brando flourishes and a dash of Hannibal Lecter...I couldn't take my eyes off him, but in truth, I found the performance painful to watch. Scarier than what the Joker does to anyone onscreen is what Ledger must have been doing to himself—trying to find the center of a character without a dream of one.