Awesome!... Very Highly Recommended!...

Rating: 10/10 (14 July 2012)

Beautifully made with an excellent score by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer that really sets the tone and carries themes over from the first film 'Batman Begins'. Lots of physical stunts used although there was some CGI in evidence; both were excellently done. Performance-wise, well star billing has to go to Heath Ledger as the Joker; I doubt I'll ever see a bad guy quite like that again, he was awesome! Of course, Christian Bale did his usual excellent work as Batman/Bruce Wayne, as did Michael Caine as Alfred. Aaron Eckhart was much better than I remembered (from first viewing) as Harvey Dent/Two-Face and Maggie Gyllenhaal did a decent job as Rachel Dawes. Gary Oldman as Lt. Jim Gordon and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox complete the starring line-up and both were excellent as ever.
I usually find, when watching a film of this length, that there is always a passage where your mind wanders and you find yourself drifting away from what's on the screen. Not so with this film; Nolan keeps your attention all the way through, whether it's with stunning action sequences or with the dialogue or just with the interaction between the characters that (by then) you've become invested in. He really is a master of his art and I can only hope he goes on to make even better films in the future. As for 'The Dark Knight' well I knocked a couple of points off for the 'tidy-up form Batman Begins' sequence at the beginning; I didn't think it was necessary. Other than that it was near- perfect VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
My score: 9.7/10
IMDb Score: 8.9/10 (based on 726,635 votes at the time of going to press).
MetaScore: 82/100: (Based on 39 critic reviews provided by Metacritic.com at the time of going to press).
Rotten Tomatoes 'Tomatometer' Score: 94/100 (based on 281 reviews counted at the time of going to press).
Rotten Tomatoes 'Audience' Score: 96/100 'Liked it' (based on 1,167,671 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).
You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.