The finest super-hero, action, blockbuster crime epic of all time!

Rating: 10/10 (23 July 2008)

And so The Dark Knight lives up to the hype. With all the expectation and the most talked about film of 2008, people either saying will it surpass the previous film and will it become the hit that it deserves. The answer is a resounding yes, thanks to the once again superb directing by Christopher Nolan (The Prestige, Memento, Batman Begins, etc) who has finally established himself as one of the top directors in Hollywood today.
There was much controversy before the films release due to the talented Heath Ledger's untimely death after the films completion, but that shouldn't be the case as Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker is one of the most iconic psychopathic, crazed, sadistic villains in film history. The praise for his performance across the world from critics saying Ledger's birth of an iconic villain deserving of an Oscar is totally correct, because this is Ledger's film (watch out for the classic magic-trick pencil sequence). Ledger depicts the Joker perfectly with the brilliant black humour, knife weapons, make-up, and of course the disturbing but brilliant laugh throughout the film and deserves full credit over Jack Nicholson's previous Joker.
But lets not forget the rest of the cast as they were as solid as ever, Gary Oldman as Lieutenant Gordon has more depth in this film, Maggie Gyllenhaal's character of Rachael Dawes situation of becoming torn between Bruce Wayne & Harvey Dent, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox (creates the Batman gadgets that makes James Bond weep), Michael Caine as Alfred, Aaron Eckhart's performance as the unfortunate coin-tossing Harvey Dent/Two Face is brilliant (the Two-Face transformation by the way is quite unpleasant but looks fantastic). And especially Christian Bale's portrayal again of Bruce Wayne is excellent (the choices Batman has to make, either becoming a hero or a masked vigilante).
Although the film's running time is two and a half hours, do not let that bother you as it flashes by thanks to the phenomenal and breathtaking action sequences of all time (the opening bank heist, the Hong Kong kidnapping, the exhilarating finale, and probably the finest of them all-the fantastic Batpod/Truck sequence). All the action scenes were filmed by Imax and the results speak for themselves.
Throughout the film there are many famous quotes to mention from either The Joker, Alfred, Batman, etc, but the one that stand's out the most is by Harvey Dent's "Die a hero or live long to become the villain", which is perfectly in the tone for the ending of the film, which leaves way for the next sequel.
May our super-hero return for another film (even though the beauty of Batman is that he has no powers). This is more than a film, this is an epic crime saga between hero's and villain's (Nolan's influence of the classic film Heat is throughout the film) that succeeds and is absolutely flawless. Even at the end of the film people were on their feet applauding, which I have never seen.
The finest super-hero, action, blockbuster crime epic of all time. Raise the bar again!