This is not a superhero flick; This is an Oscar-worthy crime drama.

Rating: 10/10 (24 July 2008)

Terrifying; Spectacular; Deep; Powerful; Long (but not Lord of the Rings long); Just a few of many words capable of describing this amazing work of film making. A picture is worth a thousand words, and the Dark Knight is worth many, many more.
Christopher Nolan's reboot of the Batman franchise began with Batman Begins in 2005, a film focusing on Batman's origins and the internal and external conflicts he faced as he attempted to save Gotham City from a world of crime and corruption. The Dark Knight picks up around where Begins left off, with Gotham's crime lords now in fear of the menacing, nocturnal protector who delivered Gotham's greatest crime lord Falconi to the police, something they failed to do, and killed the infamous Ra's Al Ghul who was attempting via gaseous poison to destroy the city completely due to its corruption.
Superhero movies this summer have, although many of them decent, been pretty traditional in terms of being flashy and superheroy (that's a word...now). But the Dark Knight is not. The Dark Knight is a crime drama, the psychological analysis of the maniacal and clever villain The Joker who not only laughs as he carves the faces of his victims but causes the city to erupt in widespread panic on several occasions. The Dark Knight is a dark, tragic romance story, written so tensely and deeply that if it wasn't for minor flaws in Maggie Gyllenhal's acting it would be just as great as its parallel story lines. But it is also a superhero film, where Batman must fight an inner struggle of whether or not to break his unspoken rule never to kill his enemies, only to deliver them to justice.
It seems unnecessary to deal out praise to the great writers and actors that made this film the masterpiece that it is, but there a few people who haven't been getting what they deserve. Of course Heath Ledger was phenomenal, as you've likely heard by now, but someone who should be praised just as much is Aaron Eckhart, who plays Gotham's conflicted District Attorney who Batman believes can be the hero the city needs and can look up to, is extremely moving in his performance especially when Dent becomes dark and villainous, transforming into a well-known character who seems just as unstoppable as The Joker.
This film is a work of art. It surpassed all of my expectations. Go to see this movie expecting a dramatic crime story, though, not some action-packed superhero flick with little plot and lots of explosions (although several fight scenes in this film are particularly cool). This is definitely my favorite film of 2008 and is quite possibly the greatest superhero film of all time. Aren't you intrigued to go see it now (as if the explosive viral marketing campaign didn't do it for you already)?