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"The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules," snarls the Joker during just one of Heath Ledger's stockpile of stolen Dark Knight scenes. In a way, writer/director Christopher Nolan has subscribed to the same credo — the scope of his two-and-a-half-hour sequel to Batman Begins is without precedent, and it's due to more than just his decision to shoot his most exhilarating action sequences with an IMAX camera. Most superhero movies at least fumble with the keys to the morality play engine, sussing out the good and the bad and organizing a predetermined shoving match until the bad takes a knee. Not so with Nolan, who cultivates the fragile, second-guessing psyche of Batman (Christian Bale) so authoritatively that it's sometimes almost sad to watch him kick ass. The film's first half focuses on Bruce Wayne's desire to hang up the black suit and pass the hero torch to dashing, fearless district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), who seems capable of squelching crime in Gotham on the clock. Following a mafia paper trail helps Dent drum up charges on hundreds of baddies — but handiness with the ledgers becomes irrelevant when the Joker, a villain with no existing material agenda to speak of, begins his nihilistic tear across the length of the city. (There's already enough pre-emptive praise out there for Ledger's final performance, so let's just say it's all more than deserved.) The ballsy, multifaceted revelation that Batman can and will do his job without public approval is the finest stroke of Nolan's masterwork. —Drew Lazor

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Official Site: thedarkknight.warnerbros.com

Rating:	PG-13
Director:	Christopher Nolan
Cast:	Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Morgan Freeman, Nestor Carbonell, Nathan Gamble, Anthony Michael Hall
Release Date:	January 23, 2009 (Limited (Re-release)), July 18, 2008 (Nationwide)
Running Time:	150
Distributor:	Warner Bros. Pictures/Legendary
Producer:	Christopher Nolan, Charles Roven, Emma Thomas
Genre:	Action/Adventure
Advisory:	for intense sequences of violence and some menace