The Dark Knight Takes Superheroes To a New Level

Christopher Nolan (writer-director) shows great detail from the casting to the make-believe city itself in this thriller. Just like some of his movies such as The Prestige, he has his audience on the edge of their seats, waiting for more. Nolan gives us a taste of what the movie is all about in the very beginning with a bank heist. The leader of this heist is the Joker (Heath Ledger) with red lips permanently scarred into a cracked smile. This is where the amazing casting comes into play.

Ledger is so mesmerizing in his performance of the Joker that sometimes it even gets boring without him in the picture. He perfectly portrays the mysterious bad guy with no name or background. The Joker's main goal is to grab the attention of all of Gotham's crime leaders in hopes that they will hire him as a bounty hunter. He first begins to pretend he's after money, but then tries to reveal all the "heroes" around him like the new District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart).

The Batman/Bruce Wayne on the other hand, wants to lead a normal life and to settle with Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), even though she's dating Harvey Dent. But when the Joker steps in, he must take up his postion of Batman again and with the help of Lieutenant Gordon (Gary Oldman), Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), and Alfred (Micheal Caine), his butler, he wages war with this sociopath and his tricks.

It's very difficult to find anything to complain about in this movie, even 2 1/2 hours seems short with all the perfectly sequenced action scenes. This unspeakably impressive movie is the best movie released so far this year.