Perfect

Rating: 10/10 (17 July 2008)

We all remember how good Batman Begins was, right? Well, after seeing the much anticipated (and hyped) sequel, Begins is child's play.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We're tonight's entertainment..." The action kicks off with a bank heist that brings back memories of Michael Mann's excellent Heat (a feeling that lingered for the entire movie) and more-or-less introduces us to The Joker. Now believe me when I say that The Joker is completely mental. Heath Ledger's performance is brilliant. There's talk of an Oscar nomination, something which is very much deserved. He completely disappears into his character, perfecting the best screen villain since Hannibal Lecter. Just check out the scene with the pencil... The Joker prefers the slow kill. He is tortured by his sinister smile (and when you hear how he got it it will send shivers down your spine). But the thing that is truly sinister about him is he's not into crime for the money. The Joker kills and stirs the pot-because he can.
"This city deserves a better class of criminal... and I'm gonna give it to them!" With praise for The Joker out of the way, it's time to acknowledge the other key players in this epic crime thriller. Morgan Freeman manages to put a new twist on his never-ending good guy roles (he was God once, for Christ's sake), Maggie Gyllenhaal is the perfect replacement for the bland Katie Holmes as Batman's long time friend and love interest Rachel Dawes, Nestor Carbonell (of Lost fame) nails the Gotham City Mayor and the awesome Michael Caine is, you guessed it, awesome as Batman's trusty butler Alfred. Another interesting point of this movie is we get insight into all of these characters, even Alfred, who's often just a plot device in previous Batman movies.
"The night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming..." Following the opening heist we see everyone's favourite troubled millionaire Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale, cinema's definitive Batman) in his Bat-Suit once again cleaning the streets of Gotham, before getting the news from his close friend and clean cop James Gordon (Gary Oldman, reprising his rare good guy role from Begins) that it would be wise to work with the city's District Attourney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart, perfectly cast) in their attempts to clean the streets of criminals. This begins a series of events that brings Batman to the attention of The Joker, who then plots to kill him in order to maintain criminal status of Gotham, first targeting various authority figures including the Mayor and Dent.
"So what are you proposing?" "It's simple: kill The Batman..." To say much more about the plot would weaken the experience of the film, but there is one other key point of this film, and that is the dramatic rise and fall of Harvey Dent and his painfully emotional and physical transformation into Harvey Two-Face...
"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain..." All in all, this film is perfectly written, there are action scenes a-plenty but they don't interfere with the extraordinary character development, contains brilliant performances all round, especially the power-house performance by Heath Ledger, directed with confidence and gusto by Christopher Nolan and is darkly funny for the most part, but takes itself very seriously when it comes to the drama.
"Know your limits, Master Wayne." "Batman has no limits." The verdict: The Dark Knight is stunning. It will be regarded as one of the best movies of the noughties, if not all time. It twists the standard comic-book formula and sets the standards of every comic-book and crime-thriller movie yet to be made. In a word: perfect.