The Dark Knight is immediately willing to throw out everything that worked in Begins, in favour of something bold and new.

Rating: 10/10 (18 February 2020)

Expectations were shattered in every respect. It took leftfield but wholly appropriate influences such as Heat and the more interesting comics like Gotham Central, to craft something not influenced by previous comic book movies. And Nolan, trusted to be let loose, refined his style that is still, in many ways, his absolute peak.
The sound and sound mix quality is absolutely superb, right from the opening, there are some expansive layers and breadth to it. I mean it's maybe one of the best I've ever heard. And Zimmer's score here is the coursing lifeblood of the movie, the nerves and sinew. The intensity and fear and chaos. That's why I think it's unquestionably Zimmers best modern electronic score; it was fresh, it's necessary not distracting.
Dialogue crackles. Scenes whip by so fast that you sit up and pay attention. And this film would have rocketed along and been very good indeed as it starts out to be. But then the movie turns its up to eleven. And chaos turns up. The exact thing to disrupt this perfect political drama and turn it on its head. The joker.
What to say that hasn't been said about The Joker?
He's the embodiment of Post-911 fear. The movie keeps wanting to tell us, don't give in to terrorists or to fear or they win. He's not crazy. And he's super smart and he's not a psychopath either. He's funny and he knows humour. That means something. That means he's capable of greater evil. His backstory is simultaneously a sort of fourth wall joke, the different versions something that only the Joker could know is a private joke, and yet is completely serious to him. His backstory is frightening and unknown, just the same way that the motives for terrorism were certainly, at the time, unknowable and serious and shifting.
The Dark Knight taught us that comic book movie adaptations didn't have to only rely on the previously set tones of their forefathers, it still is a beacon of comic adaptations future, teaching them to unshackle and find something real to say, without TDK, Wolverine simply wouldn't have known that it could have borrowed from Westerns to create Logan.
Two-Face is a great example of taking the origins of the character in the comics and twisting it to fir this world; the casting of perfect pretty-boy Eckhart, the way he gets his name from a past in IA which links to Gordon and even his hatred of Gordon, the bait and switch in the courtroom, all perfected when the ballerina places a menu in front of his face and it's clear how much of a White Knight he is and could be. It's elegant stuff really. And when his dark side kicks in he doesn't seem like an actor playing anger, there's a hitherto unseen rage inside Eckhart that bursts out in a deviousness and a genuine darkness.
In terms of plot, think of a better film that kills of the childhood sweetheart of the main hero and she wasn't super powered and didn't come back to life? These days they'd tear this choice away from the filmmakers on the basis of franchise longevity but here they went full-tilt.
The shifts in ratio from IMAX to 35mm and back again aren't jarring as they feel right in the edit - there's flow, a kind of intentional idea of how to cut inbetween almost seamlessly or certainly artfully, it's really a pleasure even if you focus on it. This is unlike absolute like Transformer's ironically titled: The Last Knight.
It's got flaws: An act too many, even though it's brisk and well made. And things like the Jokers contrived plan to get caught, which was all the rage at the time, is farfetched and plot-hole-inducing. Also I'm sure the way that he gets prints off of a bullet makes no sense.
Nice little quirks are present here: The well cast Mr. Reese that can be read as a possible nod to The Riddler (Mysteries!). The Gotham Central connections stood out well, as did the moments taken from The Long Halloween. And that Batpod reveal still takes me by surprise no matter how much I've seen this movie, and like the first time has me fist-pumping and cheering and grinning from ear to ear. And there are many great filmmaking choices that I only registered upon watching this time, such as Alfred saying goodbye to Rachel who dies shortly after, giving her character a modicum of closure before we realise it. And that editing: The slam of the door on Harvey's face and more little moments that are almost laugh out loud in how damn cheeky they are. This is bravura actual honest-to-god filmmaking.
And still there's more: The Joker's yellow teeth because of course he doesn't brush. That phone explosion seen more powerfully from far away. The epic truck/security van chase with no music that just bristles with 70's cop movie electricity. And how powerful a moment when a man who is saved can be screaming to wish he was dead because if he's alive then someone he loves will be dead in his place. Good stuff Nolan, you may now make whatever you want for the rest of your life.