I never really followed the batman movies, nor am I a huge comic book fan, but after seeing TDK, I was really impressed with Heath Ledger's performance-he was just downright spooky and ruthless! He was even pretty funny at times (the joker, ha ha). In short, Heath made this film IMO, and if it wasn't for him, I don't think this film (and this is from a non-comic book fan perspective mind you) would've been nearly as good. Just my opinion