More and more crit­ics are pour­ing on the praise, and wo’ betide us not to report them!

AICN’s Harry:

I’m late weigh­ing in on this here DARK KNIGHT pic­ture show dealio. The film is, in fact, superb in every way. A vast improve­ment on BATMAN BEGINS – amaz­ing what hap­pens when you no longer have to deal with an ori­gin story and sat­is­fy­ing only the mer­chan­diz­ing inter­ests of the par­ent cor­po­ra­tion. Instead, Nolan has decided to treat Bat­man as only the best Comic Writ­ers have dared to. Adult, scary and frightening.

AICN’s Capone:

Here’s the thing you must under­stand: even if you’ve dug up every pos­si­ble trailer and clip of Heath Ledger as the great­est screen vil­lain in any super­hero movie ever, you really don’t have any idea how good his per­for­mance is in The Dark Knight. The true strength of his Joker isn’t his gal­lows humor one-liners or smart-ass quips he deliv­ers as he tears apart what is left of the fab­ric of Gotham City (look­ing more like its film­ing loca­tion of Chicago this time out than the juiced-up ver­sion in Bat­man Begins). The true strength of the final com­plete per­for­mance of Ledger’s life lies in his much longer monologues.

AICN’s Mr Beaks:

Christo­pher Nolan’s THE DARK KNIGHT is the Bat­man movie I wanted in 1989: a sav­agely down­beat epic that views Gotham City as a dis­in­te­grat­ing, crime-choked micro­cosm of the United States. It’s a film about the impos­si­bil­ity of jus­tice in Amer­i­can life and the vicious­ness to which we’ll suc­cumb in order to see another day; a cheer­less sum­mer block­buster that ulti­mately exhibits just enough faith in human­ity to keep from descend­ing into utter mis­an­thropy. It is a movie that enthralls one moment and pun­ishes the next, lash­ing the audi­ence for giv­ing in to its IMAX-abetted exhil­a­ra­tion when the abyss is beck­on­ing. It is, in other words, as hope­lessly con­flicted as its hero — and Bat­man fans shouldn’t want it any other way.

Cinematical’s Scott Weinberg:

Some­times some folks just get it right. Bryan Singer was right for X-Men, Sam Raimi was right for Spider-Man, and dear lord is Christo­pher Nolan right for Bat­man. Maybe not the campy old Bat­man that the nos­tal­gia fans know and love, but if the char­ac­ter had any clear path to fol­low after the dis­as­ter of Bat­man & Robin and the renais­sance of Frank Miller, then this is where he should be: Anchor­ing a smart, dark, dar­ing, and very intel­li­gent movie that cel­e­brates most of why we love the damn Bat in the first place: He’s hurt, he’s angry, he’s con­flicted, he’s kinda weird … aside from the money and the suit, he’s pretty much just like every­one else.

Film School Reject’s Kevin Carr:

The Dark Knight absolutely deliv­ers a riv­et­ing film with tons of action but not at the expense of plot or char­ac­ter. And it is a huge step up from Bat­man Begins.

Hol­ly­wood Chicago’s Adam Fendelman:

With only three short words com­pris­ing the film’s enig­matic title, “The Dark Knight” also boasts three epic claims to fame: the role of a life­time for the late Heath Ledger as the haunt­ingly deranged Joker, one of the best films of 2008 and one of the great­est super­hero films of all time.

Film School Reject’s Nathan Deen:

A heavy dose of Iron Man and The Incred­i­ble Hulk have made me feel bet­ter, but walk­ing out of The Dark Knight was noth­ing short of a breath of fresh air. My point is that other comic book movies just feel insignif­i­cant com­pared to this one. So finally, I think I can let go of my Spidey depres­sion and for­get about [Spider-man 3].