Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight is far, far superior to his earlier Batman Begins. With this film, Batman has stepped out of the action comic niche and into the serious drama genre. And yet, I find that it doesn't have much to say in that regard. Despite being bleak and hopeless, it reveals no message. Unlike No Country for Old Men or A Clockwork Orange, the discomfort and unpleasantness you endure while watching are not rectified in the end by a meaningful message. It tells us that the (fictional) citizens of Gotham still have hope, despite living in a city with corrupt cops and innocents-killing villains. I wouldn't have hope, I'd have a moving van reserved. So, granted, it doesn't have a message. But what's the big deal? A lot of movies don't. The big deal is that this movie is so effective at what it sets out to do. It is so well-crafted that you feel the unease and nervousness prickling your skin and upsetting your stomach. And there is no redemption at the end. There is nothing. So why did I watch it?
Technically, the movie is more than adequate. The editing and pacing were superb; not a single frame of what ended up in the final cut was off. The film started off tense with a heist on par with Michael Mann's Heat, and never sagged one bit. When you watch this film, you are enveloped by it. The problem was in its 2.5 hour runtime, which arose not in post-production but in pre-production, while the story was still being formulated. A number of scenes should have been eliminated altogether because they showed nothing new, but merely reiterated what we already knew. Another set of scenes ended abruptly (after the Joker crashes Bruce Wayne's fundraiser, for example) with no resolution or transition, and needed to be reworked. Some technological advances were simply dumb and annoying to the audience (the Bat-Sonar), while others were novel and exciting (the Batcycle/Batpod). The cinematography, while definitely a step up from Batman Begins, was still nothing particularly amazing. (Although after seeing so many awful indie films with bad lighting, I'm impressed to see a movie set almost constantly in darkness where I can tell exactly what's going on at all times.) The music was phenomenal on its own and pitch-perfect in conjunction with the mood and atmosphere of the film. I couldn't get the theme out of my head for at least an hour afterwards.
And onto the acting. Forget everyone else, because all you will care about is Heath Ledger's Joker. He steals the show. Not just in every frame he's in, but in every frame of the movie. You simply cannot stop thinking about him. Even Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent is forgettable in comparison. Now, is it worthy of a posthumous Oscar? It's way too early to tell. But if he gets nominated, I think he should/will win, out of respect for the dead. The rest of the acting was adequate and not the least bit noteworthy. I didn't think that Maggie Gyllenhaal was a good choice to replace Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. She was pretty unattractive in this film (which is shocking, because she can be really attractive in other films like Stranger Than Fiction) and a pretty weak character overall, although she served more of a purpose in this film than in the last one.
Overall, I highly recommend the film. It's difficult for me to say that I enjoyed watching it, due to its unbearably painful and unyielding darkness, but I will admit that I was pleasantly surprised at how much better it was from the first one. It would have been awful to pay money and spend 3 hours in a theater watching a poorly-made version of itself. So, if you liked Batman Begins, you will without a doubt love this one. (It's probably you fanboys who got it to the top spot on IMDb.) If you hated Batman Begins, give this one a chance. But I don't think you're missing much if you skip out on seeing this film, except perhaps the ability to discuss it with all the rest of the people in the world.IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/