Almost the perfect movie... almost

Rating: 9/10 (15 August 2018)

I gave a half hearted review of The Dark Knight Rises and explained why, so I figured I should do the counter balance and review the superior film, The Dark Knight.
Two things were interesting about this for me:
One is how much more of a comic book it is than a film. I counted at least 4 plots among the main story, all interconnected and interweaving. But it's not boring like certain other comic book adaptions can be - this is more like a comic book soap opera. The personal relationships matter.
The second thing for me: the handling of noir.
Noir is all about how the viewer manipulates the action by viewing. The script is everything here. Wayne has to find out certain information at the same time the viewer does while the Joker is the mastermind, already having set everything up. All anyone else can do is react.
The novel trick here is the joker. At two points in the movie, the joker makes a film within a film. He murders innocents, has police routines figured out to a T, has an amazingly complex plan and makes it seem accidental while acting capricious, and pretends not to be amused by the whole thing.