Christopher Nolan is the hero we deserve and The Dark Knight is the film we need.

Rating: 9/10 (1 July 2012)

The Dark Knight is the second part of Christopher Nolan's gritty re-imagination of the Batman saga. The cast of Batman begins stays with the exception of Katie Holmes being replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes. Morgan Freeman's Lucius still supplies Batman with his cool cars and gadgets and Michael Caine still plays Batman's servant Alfred. New to the trilogy is Heath Ledger's psychopathic Joker and Aaron Eckhart's White Knight/Two-Face Harvey Dent.
If there's one thing to criticize about The Dark Knight it's something that seems to be an issue in many Christopher Nolan films: The explanatory dialogue. Nolan doesn't always follow the rule "Show, don't tell" and has his character be stand-ins for the audience, explaining what could be communicated visually. It's a minor flaw though and the only thing taking the viewer out of this otherwise ridiculously great film.
Accompanied by Hans Zimmer's score the film moves forward at a steady pace, allowing the story to happen and the characters to develop simultaneously through their actions. The cinematography has epic proportions and the use of action is never unnecessary filler material but a device to move the plot forward, always full of gravitas and feeling like it has actual consequences. Other superhero films need music montages to make the hero look cool. Batman in The Dark Knight is always cool, without the need for artificial coolness, as it should be.
The Dark Knight turns the conception of "The superhero is purely good and fights against the purely evil villain" around. There are always casualties. There's no such thing as a perfect choice that makes the good people happy and the bad people pay for their crimes. The world is unfair and for Harvey Dent's character that's unbearable. Because evil and corruption have taken what he loved most away from him he decided to bring justice to Gotham by making everything happen unbiased, by chance.
The Joker brings chaos into the world of the superhero where there should be the good guys and the bad guys. He makes people question their moral and tries to make them believe that they all are like him, maniacs only being held back by society's laws and rules. The courts of Gotham itself is corrupted by the mob so even the place where justice should be isn't safe of bad people and moral injustice. Heath Ledger personifies that idea of anarchy so well and every bit of praise he's gotten is well deserved.
In the end Batman cruises through the night, having done his deed, knowing that there is no final justice but that everything he's done has improved morality and justice on the whole. He lets someone else take the fame and goes back into the dark streets of Gotham, waiting for the next maniac to come along, upping his defense and making us want to see if he manages to expel evil in the last part of the trilogy.