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"The Dark Knight" premiered Monday night in New York, and Heath Ledger’s parents and family were there to see the results.

I can tell you that the Ledgers wholeheartedly approved of the film, although it was incredibly difficult for them to watch their late son on the screen.

After the screening at the IMAX theater in Lincoln Square, the Ledgers gave me this statement: "'The Dark Knight' is everything we hoped it would be and more. Heath loved the experience of creating this character and working on the film. We are so proud of our boy.”

They should be. As you’ve probably read elsewhere by now, Heath gives the performance of a lifetime in Chris Nolan’s second Batman film as the Joker. He’s a much different Joker, though, than anything you’ve seen before in the world of the Dark Knight (that’s Batman’s nickname).

Jerry Robinson, the 87-year-old creator of Robin the Boy Wonder, the Joker, the Penguin and several other Batman villains for the famed DC Comics series, told me, “Heath was closest to the vision we had for The Joker. Cesar Romero looked the part [in the TV series] and Jack Nicholson is a great actor [from the 1989 film], but this is what we imagined.”

I don’t want to inadvertently give anything away — beware here of spoilers — but in "The Dark Knight," Ledger’s Joker is so skillfully over-the-top in a variety of poses and other unexpected gender-bending twists that Ledger will certainly be nominated for an Oscar and could even win.

Where he could be campy he’s not, and in fact, Ledger’s creation is as satisfying as any in a “straight” movie — as opposed to a drama based on a comic book.

Nolan, who directed the previous “Batman Begins” and one of my favorite all-time movies, “Memento,” has made "The Dark Knight" a legitimate masterwork of the genre. With his brother Jonathan co-writing, Nolan has also tried to bring in lots and lots of classic Batman material from the more seriously regarded comics circa 1970.

The Nolans are certainly helped by their regular cinematographer, Wally Pfister, and composers Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard. In fact I will tell you something to look for — SPOILER ALERT: There’s a climactic scene in which Batman rescues Commissioner Gordon’s young son from nearly the same fate he — as Bruce Wayne — suffered as a child. The filmmakers used the same piece of music from “Batman Begins” from the corresponding scene in that movie to drive home the point.

“I’m glad you got that,” Nolan told me Monday night at the swanky post-party at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. “Not many people do.”

“Chris is so happy when people see those things,” Zimmer said, after we discussed the unusual musical performance that preceded the screening. Zimmer, Newton Howard and two other musicians performed a portion of the movie’s score live for the premiere audience at the IMAX on keyboards, computers and percussion, along with eight French horn players from local symphonies.

“We did it for Chris,” Zimmer said. “But he was going crazy because he’s a control freak and didn’t know what we were doing. And he didn’t fall asleep either!”

It was truly the most unique and beautiful overture to a premiere I’ve ever seen.

So what of “The Dark Knight”? There have already been raves for it in the classier publications. Mostly, I agree. It’s spectacular.

It’s also long. Why can’t filmmakers excise those extra 15 minutes from their films? “Dark Knight” is a long night sometimes. There are confusing passages. But there are also such exciting sequences that it doesn’t matter.

SPOILER ALERT: You will be incredibly moved, I think, by a subplot about two ferry boats carrying passengers, wired for explosion.

There are sections of “Dark Knight” without Batman or Bruce Wayne, when you wish he — and not Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent — were featured as the male lead. Blond-streaked, square-jawed Dent often seems to be usurping Christian Bale’s time.

And of course, Ledger’s Joker must have seemed so watchable in the editing room that he just takes up more and more of the film. Bale, who’s always a mesmerizing actor, takes a backseat a lot even though he is the Dark Knight of the title.

Now, Ledger obviously died when principal photography was done, and there will be a third installment of the new Batman series. His Joker character’s fate, I must report, is left ambiguously without resolution. Let’s just say he’s left hanging.

No one at the premiere would comment, but it’s unlikely The Joker will be recast. There are plenty of villains we haven’t seen yet, Robinson pointed out. The Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman and so many more. “Dark Knight” closes the book on The Joker for this generation.

But Batman lives. Some 60 years after Robinson invented these characters with Bob Kane and Bill Finger, the characters have been preserved and re-presented beautifully and hauntingly. I rarely say this about any movie, but I can’t wait to see “The Dark Knight” again.

P.S. In attendance Monday night: Danny DeVito, “The Penguin” from the '90s, who loved the new film. Also there: Maggie Gyllenhaal, who replaced Katie Holmes as Rachel from "Batman Begins," with significant other Peter Saarsgard, who sports beard for his upcoming Broadway turn in Chekhov.

Michael Caine came with his wife of a million years, Shakira, who remains a stunning beauty. “I still haven’t had plastic surgery!” she told me. She hasn’t, but she is really a Wonder of the World.

Also on hand: Gary Oldman, who’s wonderful as Commission Gordon, as well as Morgan Freeman; plus brothers Bobby and Danny Zarem, Bonnie Timmerman, Ryan Kavanaugh, super agent Boaty Boatwright.

Director Nolan wanted the IMAX Theater for the premiere, which meant many fewer seats than usual. I’m told both uber-PR gal Peggy Siegal and Vanity Fair’s Jane Sarkin each gave up theirs to accommodate the filmmakers’ guests. Nice! via