.: ShaolinTiger - Kung-Fu Geekery :.

Batman and James Gordon join forces with Gotham's new District Attorney, Harvey Dent, to take on a psychotic bank robber known as The Joker, whilst other forces plot against them, and Joker's crimes grow more and more deadly.

Honestly I think Christopher Nolan can do no wrong....he's only made 8 movies and 3 are in the top 250 on IMDB...and I'm guessing this will make it 4 (Memento, The Prestige and Batman Begins).

He's back again to take us on another rollercoaster, Batman Begins was hailed as one of the best superhero movies of all time and it really returned to the roots of Gotham City..dark, brooding, nasty and violent. The character of Bruce Wayne was captured by a fantastic Christian Bale - he's fast becoming one of the best actors around.

And this...The Dark Knight, just rocks in and blows you away. It's sad, truly sad that Heath Ledger is gone and I would be surprised if he doesn't nail an Oscar for his performance...he's truly terrifying, unhinged and totally believable as the joker. It's hands down one of the best performances in any movie I've ever seen. RIP Heath, you surely went out with a bang.

This movie delves deep into the character of Batman and Bruce Wayne, his own flaws and how the Joker desires to make him look at himself and why he does it - does he have a deep down loathing for society? It's a character study and a gripping one at that. The cinematography is perfect along with the sound-track - it really takes you there.

The Batpod comes out, and it's awesome! Christian Bale is great as Bruce Wayne and Batman, although the spotlight isn't on him so much in this movie.

Maggie Gyllenhaal was better than Katie Holmes in Batman Begins....but still not the strongest player in the movie.

The rest of the regulars put in great performances (Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman). Not sure about Aaron Eckhart still..The Scarecrow made a very brief entrance too, but wasn't really part of the movie.

The movie was long, and in places it felt it - this would be my one and only complaint. If not for that it's near perfection. This is the most I've written about a movie for a long time and I definitely have to get a BluRay version of this to watch on a huge HD projector at some time in the future.

I give it a dark and dastardly 9/10, definitely close to being best movie of the year.

I still feel elite as I saw this movie on Tuesday...and IMDB still doesn't have a rating because not enough people have watched it!

When fate prevents him from avenging the deaths of his parents, young Bruce Wayne (Bale) flees to Asia where he seeks counsel from a dangerous ninja cult leader known as Ra's al Ghul (Watanabe). When he returns, Bruce finds that Gotham City has become overrun with crime and corruption, and that there are forces at work trying to remove him from his inherited place as the owner of Wayne Industries. Discovering a cave under Wayne Manor, Bruce assumes a new identity as a secret detective and guardian of the people of Gotham City against the criminals that plague them...

Batman has gone back to it's roots, this is a gritty, dark movie with an impoverished crime ridden Gotham dominated by drug lords, evil-doers and corrupt officials.

There is a star studded cast, I was like, wow another famous person, and another and another and another (Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Ken Watanabe), and so many brits?!

It's already hoisted itself into the number 64 spot on the top 250 in the first week!

Not surprisingly it's a far far better movie than the previous few lame Batman attempts (Batman and Robin, Batman Forever *yawn). It's actually a good movie.

The original Batman was a classic! All the back from 1989. With Jack Nicholson as the joker. After that was Batman Returns in 1992, with Michelle Pfeieffer as Catwoman...meow! I loved that, but the film itself wasn't so great. Both were pretty gritty, dark movies, staying in line with the original comics, Batman Returns was a bit cheesier, after that it went downhill fast with Mr Freeze..

What most people don't realise is a lot of these comics are actually very violent and adult in nature addressing serious issues in a form more acceptable to the mainstream..

The action through-out was great, good fight scenes, nice gadgets, nice introduction to all the things we know so well about Batman.

The only thing that ruined it for me, was as usual the hotdog cheese American lovey dovey suck my hairy nut sack ending, SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS..

Anyway, if you haven't, go and watch it.

I give it a good 8/10 (9 if it wasn't for the ending).