Full Review

As the title implies, "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros./Legendary) is not your grandfather's heroic "Batman," but an emotionally complex vigilante, reviled as much as hailed by a populace he's risking himself to help.

This tumultuous and technically dazzling sequel to 2005's "Batman Begins" has the chiropteranlike crusader (Christian Bale), alter ego of billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, challenged by the Joker (Heath Ledger), an anarchic criminal markedly devoid of the slightest moral code, to reveal his true identity or else scores of people will die.

Batman is deeply conflicted about the Joker's threat, especially with popular opinion demanding the caped crusader turn himself in for his disruptive crime-busting.

Meanwhile, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), the upstanding district attorney who also happens to be Bruce's romantic rival for the affections of lawyer Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) -- working in tandem with Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), chief of the city's major crime unit, strives to bring integrity to a deeply corrupt Gotham City.

Both Gordon and Dent -- assisted by Rachel as assistant district attorney -- must work within the boundaries of the law, but they rely on Batman as their unofficial ally to take a less orthodox approach.

Much of the interest in this film has been fueled by advance word on Ledger's performance in light of the actor's tragic death earlier this year. He is indeed electrifying in his last completed role: swaggering, mocking and diabolical. His vibrant turn outshines just about everyone else in the cast, including Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman as Wayne's impeccable butler Alfred and Wayne Enterprises CEO Lucius Fox, respectively; Eric Roberts as gangster Maroni; and Nestor Carbonell as Gotham's mayor.

Director and co-writer Christopher Nolan brings consummate polish to the creation of a chaotic and brutal milieu, but one at least relieved by underlying decency. A climactic scene involving a moral decision among hundreds of people provides emphatic affirmation, as do other small acts of honor throughout the film.

Despite the skill with which it was made, the film would have benefited from some judicious cutting, while Nolan's script (written with his brother, Jonathan Nolan) often seems needlessly complex. The competitive factions that make up Gotham's crime syndicate -- all financially tied to an Asian honcho (Chin Han) and ultimately beholden to the Joker -- plus the treacheries and turnabouts among even the upstanding characters, become dizzying.

But Christopher Nolan's bottomless pool of inventiveness and the epic sweep of the story keeps you riveted if, by the end, more than a little enervated.

The film will also be presented in Imax theaters, and six of the masterful action sequences were shot with Imax cameras, a first for a feature film.

These movies have been evaluated for artistic merit and moral suitability by the media reviewing division of Catholic News Service. The reviews include the CNS rating, the Motion Picture Association of America rating, and a brief synopsis of the movie.

The classifications are as follows:

A-I -- general patronage;
A-II -- adults and adolescents;
A-III -- adults;
L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. L replaces the previous classification, A-IV.
O -- morally offensive.

Note: Some movies previously were designated A-IV. Older films with this classification should be regarded as classified L.