I just read through your guys' comments, and wanted to add my two cents
. I haven't yet seen the movie (I'm dying to, though 
), but I've read the rave reviews Heath's performance is getting. It's encouraging that the performance changed your minds 
.
In regard to your early reservations about casting an actor as young as he was, I didn't think it was a bad choice at all, not even when I first read that he was going to play the Joker. I mean, Batman Begins and this movie are about Bruce Wayne's early days as Batman, right? It only makes sense to see the main villains in their younger days, too, IMHO, leastways
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. Such a loss 