About The Dark Knight, which we saw on Saturday and by which we were suitably awed, impressed and overwhelmed: it’s an interesting sign that those who know their Batman — steeped in the mythology, own all the key graphic novels, have been reading the comics for decades — like this movie an awful lot. My brother, for example, who loved it. Lou Anders calls it “perfect”: he loved Batman Begins, and says The Dark Knight “even makes Batman Begins look silly by comparison.” Or have a look at Gary Westfahl’s self-described obsessive review of the film.

There are novels less dense, with fewer layers. This is a great movie; it makes the Tim Burton Batman look like the Adam West Batman. This is Batman for grown-ups. It is not, however, a concise movie.