Amazing Film, Heath Ledger's Joker was the highlight of the film! Includes Spoilers.

Rating: 9/10 (30 July 2008)

The Dark Knight is the second instalment of Christopher Nolan's series of Batman films, with the first being Batman Begins. This story is based around The Joker, (Heath Ledger) a psychopathic maniac, who causes mayhem in Gotham City and Batman (Christian Bale) trying to stop him. It questions whether Batman is the true hero of Gotham City or if the public believe in someone else.
The opening scene is just spectacular; it takes place in bank and shows an extremely exciting robbery in which each robber gets killed by another until finally The Joker is left with all the money. The scene really gets the audience immediately hooked on the film, unable to take their eyes off the screen. About five minutes later, it begins another action packed scene that includes Batman stopping The Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy), a gang of mobsters and a bunch of Batman copy-cats. Throughout the film there are many scenes that are action packed and gripping. In one scene it shows two boats, one full of citizens and one full of criminals. They are told by The Joker to blow up the other boat in order to survive, but if they don't both boats will be blown up. They argue and take votes on what decision to make and it makes the audience themselves think, what would I do in that situation?
The acting is marvellous by most of the actors in the film. Gary Oldman, who plays Lt. James Gordon, was spectacular and you could really see the frustration his character was going through when he was unable to stop the Joker from killing his friends, colleagues and the citizens of Gotham City. When his character is forced to choose between his family members, you can really feel the heartache and pain of what he is going through. It is another outstanding performance by Gary Oldman. Aaron Eckhart's character, Harvey Dent, is honestly a pretty boring character and the only emotion he really has is his love for Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). However, the minute he turns into Two Face, his acting abilities shine through, which is probably helped with the shocking special effects that are used on half of his face.
Heath Ledger, who unfortunately passed away recently, plays The Joker and is the highlight of the film. He makes his character absolutely terrifying, but completely hilarious at the same time. The Joker has no rules and causes complete chaos just to watch people's reactions. This is Heath's last complete film role and it is such an amazing performance that he should win the Oscar that many people are speculating about.
I, personally, am not a huge Batman fan, but I have seen one or two of the previous movies, not including Batman Begins. The Dark Knight does not feel like a comic book movie, even if it is Batman. It is serious and dark, unlike Batman and Robin which is comical, camp and crap. If you are not a Batman fan, you will still enjoy the movie. You don't need to have seen Batman Begins to understand what is going on. The only thing I questioned was whether Rachel knew the true identity of Batman, Bruce Wayne, but within about twenty seconds, I realised that in fact she did.
During the film, I noticed the reactions of the other audience members; some were hiding behind their coats, whilst others at the same time had a constant grin on their face. The film excellently combines thrill and humour to give it that something special.
The disappointing things about The Dark Knight were that it is over two and a half hours long and it does seem as if it drags on a bit. Also, I was extremely disappointed in Maggie Gyllenhaal's performance as Rachel Dawes. I found her acting bland and unemotional. She didn't seem bothered when The Joker was threatening her or when she thrown off the building, which resulted in the most pathetic scream I have ever heard. I really didn't care if she was the one who ended up getting blown up at the end. Another thing that just really annoyed me was Batman's voice, yes he has to disguise it so people don't recognise his real voice, but I just found it was annoying, weird and comical.
Overall, the film is spectacular, Heath Ledger's Joker was bloody amazing and it is a must see. It has got to be the best summer movie of 2008 or generally, one of the best movies of 2008.