This is what Batman is.

Rating: 9/10 (11 September 2008)

The Dark Knight finds us in a new Gotham city. Gotham is no longer the city of despair but a city in which criminals are scared to work at night. Batman's campaign against crime in his beloved city is working, until a new player enters Gotham. In the middle of a heated election for district attorney Gotham receives a new type of criminal who is not motivated by money or power but by sheer desire for chaos.
This film is practically perfect in every way. The acting is amazing making every character worth my attention and feeling. Aron Eckhart gives us a fantastic Harvey Dent as the white knight of Gotham fighting to be the clean district attorney. Gary Oldman is a powerful James Gordan and creates a human grounding for the audience. Christian Bale gives us another tortured and driven Batman which is exactly what batman should be. Finally I have to say that Heath Ledger was brilliant as the Joker. I was both scared and entertained by the Joker which is what I have always felt from the character in the comics.
The action was both clean in the sense of blood and guts but still very painful. Each horrific act by the Joker hits you hard. This is part of the brilliance of the Nolan's story telling. I felt every punch and evil act and it made me react with out showing me cheap blood and stupid gore. My intelligence as a person wasn't insulted and my eyes weren't assaulted, it was brilliant. The brilliance is not in the action however but in what this movie shows us in the story.
TDK shows us a world in which our fears about evil and confusion about how to fight it are thrown in our faces. I find in this world we get scared to call evil evil which causes us to become weak when we are hit upside the head by it. In TDK evil is present it is true and good must fight to the bitter end to expose it and finally to stop it. What must good do to stop it however? What lines can good not cross and is that a weakness on the side of good? How TDK deals with these questions is fantastic. My one problem is that this film probably should have been rated R and not PG-13. With that aside this is a masterpiece of a film.