Heath Ledger is outstanding in this follow up to the 2006 "Batman Begins" outing for the caped crusader. His portrayal of the malevolent "Joker' is confident and highly entertaining, treading a fine line between supreme intellect and total insanity with considerable aplomb. He comes back to terrorise "Gotham" after "Batman" (Christian Bale), "Gordon" (Gary Oldman) - now Commissioner in charge of the police force, and newly installed District Attorney "Dent" (Aaron Eckhart) had made progress getting the criminals off the street. The "Joker", meantime, decides that the best strategy is to rob the mob - and pitching them all against each other, and with the help of the duplicitous "Lau" (Chin Han) manages to secure enough of their funds to initiate a campaign of lawlessness that is ruthless, manipulative and good fun to watch. Not only has the man in black his new, potent, nemesis to deal with - but he also begins to realise that his childhood sweetheart "Rachel" (this time Maggie Gyllenhaal) is drifting into the arms of the new DA. it is also pretty clear that they are both now proving to be an useful additional weapon in the armoury of his enemy who knows, increasingly, which buttons to press to cause maximum anxiety among those who would bring him down. It's over 2½ hours long, but really does fly by as the quickly paced action really does kick in right from the start. The story is dark and gritty but the pace isn't ponderous and moody - Ledger exudes a sense of peril throughout the whole thing, but that has an edge to it - a sophistication that plays well against the flawed superhero who is increasingly having to identify and cope with his own demons. Sir Michael Caine pops up now and again as his shrewd butler "Alfred", always striving to keep his boss on the right side of sanity, and Morgan Freeman continues to feature (sparingly) and his quartermaster. On that latter front, there are loads of new gadgets that still have that element of plausibility to them (no super-powers!). On balance I think I still preferred the first film, but as sequels go - this takes, and will take, some beating. On a big screen in a packed cinema, it's just a great experience.