The Dark Knight (2008)

&nbsp

Plot
In Gotham City, the Joker and his accomplices rob a bank used by the local mob as a front for money laundering. Batman and Lieutenant James Gordon decide to include new district attorney Harvey Dent, who is dating Bruce Wayne's childhood sweetheart Rachel Dawes, in their plan to eradicate the mob. Bruce later meets Dent and offers him a fundraiser after realizing his sincerity. Mob bosses Sal Maroni, Gambol, and the Chechen meet to discuss the new pressure on their crime operations. Lau, a Chinese mafia accountant, informs them that he has hidden their money and fled to Hong Kong in an attempt to preempt Gordon's plan to seize their funds and hide from Dent's jurisdiction. The Joker barges into the meeting, warning that Batman will come after Lau, and instead offers to kill Batman for half of the funds. They flatly refuse, and Gambol places a bounty on the Joker's head. Not long after, the Joker kills Gambol and takes control of his gang.

Batman captures Lau in Hong Kong and delivers him to the Gotham City police; he agrees to testify, allowing Dent and Gordon to arrest the mobsters en masse. In retaliation, the Joker issues an ultimatum to Gotham that people will die each day unless Batman reveals his identity, resulting in the deaths of Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb and the judge presiding over the mob trials. Gordon foils the Joker's assassination attempt on the mayor, apparently dying in the process. As a result, Bruce plans to reveal his identity as Batman, but Dent instead names himself as Batman to protect the truth and is taken into protective custody. Escorted across the city, Dent is pursued by the Joker while Batman rushes to his aid. Gordon, who faked his death to lure the Joker, arrests him with Batman's help and is promoted to Commissioner. However, Dent goes missing and the Joker reveals that both Dent and Rachel have been taken to separate buildings on opposite sides of town which will explode at the same time. Batman goes after Rachel, while Gordon and the police go to rescue Dent. At the same time, the Joker escapes custody with Lau using a smuggled bomb. As the Joker has switched around the hostages' locations, Batman finds Dent and rescues him, even as Dent begs him to save Rachel instead. The buildings explode; Rachel is killed, while half of Dent's face is burned in the explosion, leaving him disfigured.

After killing Lau and the Chechen, the Joker threatens to destroy a hospital if Coleman Reese, an accountant at Wayne Enterprises who has deduced Batman's identity, is not dead within an hour. Bruce saves Reese, while the Joker visits Dent in the hospital and convinces him to take revenge against those who played a part in Rachel's death. The Joker blows up the hospital and leaves with a bus full of hostages, while Dent — now calling himself "Two-Face" — confronts and kills Maroni and one of the two corrupt cops who gave him and Rachel to the mob.

That night, as civilians are evacuated from the city, the Joker has two ferries rigged with explosives, offering both civilian and prisoner passenger groups a chance to live if they destroy the other boat. Batman asks his confidant Lucius Fox to find the Joker using a signal tracking device that will effectively spy on the entire city; Fox reluctantly agrees, but says he will resign from Wayne Enterprises if the device stays in service after this emergency. Upon discovering the Joker's location, Batman stops Gordon's SWAT teams from taking out the Joker, in order to protect the hostages and to capture the Joker himself. The ferry passengers ultimately refuse to kill one another, and Batman apprehends the Joker, who nevertheless says that he has won "the battle for Gotham's soul"; he reveals what he has done to Dent, stating that the citizens of Gotham will lose their newly-found hope once Dent's rampage becomes public knowledge.

At the remains of the building where Rachel died, Batman finds Two-Face holding Gordon and his family at gunpoint. Two-Face judges the fate of Batman, himself, and Gordon's son with three flips of his lucky coin. As the result of the first two flips, he shoots Batman in the abdomen and spares himself. As Two-Face flips the coin to determine the boy's fate, Batman (who is wearing body armor) tackles him over the side of the building, killing him.[10] Batman convinces Gordon to hold him publicly responsible for the murders; moments later, the police swarm the building, and a manhunt for Batman ensues. Batman retreats on the Batpod, now a fugitive. Gordon later delivers the eulogy at Dent's funeral and smashes the Bat-Signal, while Fox watches the signal-tracking device self-destruct and Alfred Pennyworth destroys a letter written by Rachel revealing her plans to marry Dent.

Reception
Based on 277 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a 94% approval rating from critics, with an average score of 8.4/10.[122] Among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television, and radio programs,[123] the film holds an overall approval rating of 91%.[124] By comparison, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating in the 0–100 range based on reviews from top mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 82, based on 39 reviews.[6] CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade cinemagoers gave the film was "A" on an A+ to F scale, and that audiences skewed slightly male and older.[125]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times describes The Dark Knight as a "haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy." He praises the performances, direction, and writing, and says the film "redefine[s] the possibilities of the comic-book movie." Ebert states that the "key performance" is by Heath Ledger, and pondered whether he would become the first posthumous Academy Award-winning actor since Peter Finch in 1976. Ledger ultimately won the Oscar.[126] Ebert named it one of his twenty favorite films of 2008.[127] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone writes that the film is deeper than its predecessor, with a "deft" script that refuses to scrutinize the Joker with popular psychology, instead pulling the viewer in with an examination of Bruce Wayne's psyche.[128] Travers has praise for all the cast, saying each brings his or her "'A' game" to the film. He says Bale is "electrifying," evoking Al Pacino in The Godfather Part II, and that Eckhart's portrayal of Harvey Dent is "scarily moving."[128] Travers says the actor moves the Joker away from Jack Nicholson's interpretation into darker territory, and expresses his support for any potential campaign to have Ledger nominated for an Academy Award,[128] Travers says that the filmmakers move the film away from comic book cinema and closer to being a genuine work of art, citing Nolan's direction and the "gritty reality" of Wally Pfister's cinematography as helping to create a universe that has something "raw and elemental" at work within it. In particular, he cites Nolan's action choreography in the IMAX-tailored heist sequence as rivaling that of Heat (1995).[128] Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "Every great hero needs a great villain. And in 2008, Christian Bale's Batman found his in Heath Ledger's demented dervish, the Joker."[129]

Emanuel Levy wrote Ledger "throws himself completely" into the role,[130] and that the film represents Nolan's "most accomplished and mature" work, and the most technically impressive and resonant of all the Batman films. Levy calls the action sequences some of the most impressive seen in an American film for years, and talks of the Hong Kong-set portion of the film as being particularly visually impressive.[130] Levy and Peter Travers conclude that the film is "haunting and visionary,"[128] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Levy_129-2" sizcache="1" sizset="549">[130] while Levy goes on to say that The Dark Knight is "nothing short of brilliant."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Levy_129-3" sizcache="1" sizset="550">[130] On the other hand, David Denby of The New Yorker holds that the story is not coherent enough to properly flesh out the disparities. He says the film's mood is one of "constant climax," and that it feels rushed and far too long. Denby criticizes scenes which he argues are meaningless or are cut short just as they become interesting.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-denby_130-0" sizcache="1" sizset="553">[131] Denby remarks that the central conflict is workable, but that "only half the team can act it," saying that Bale's "placid" Bruce Wayne and "dogged but uninteresting" Batman is constantly upstaged by Ledger's "sinister and frightening" performance, which he says is the film's one element of success. Denby concludes that Ledger is "mesmerising" in every scene.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-denby_130-1" sizcache="1" sizset="554">[131] While Denby has praise for Pfister's cinematography, he does not rate the film as a remarkable piece of craftmanship. He puts forward that while a lot happens in the film, it is often difficult to follow due to the close, dark photography and editing. Denby says the film is too grim and is seemingly "jammed together."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-denby_130-2" sizcache="1" sizset="555">[131] He surmises that the "heavy-handed" score and "thunderous" violence only serve to coarsen the property from Tim Burton's vision of the franchise into a "hyperviolent summer action spectacle," and that the film embraces the themes of terror that it purports to scrutinize.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-denby_130-3" sizcache="1" sizset="557">[131]

The Dark Knight was ranked the 15th greatest film in history on Empire's 2008 list of the "500 Greatest Movies of All Time," based upon the weighted votes of 10,000 readers, 150 film directors, and 50 key film critics.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-131" sizcache="1" sizset="559">[132] Heath Ledger's interpretation of the Joker was also ranked number three on Empire's 2008 list of the "100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time."

Sequel
It was been confirmed that a seventh Batman film is releasing in Summer 2012. The confirmed title is The Dark Knight Rises.