Nothing to Joke About

Rating: 10/10 (22 July 2008)

One word to describe "The Dark Knight"? Intense. It takes awhile to get cranked up, but once it does- whoa! Heath Ledger's Joker powers this movie. He's the driving force, and Batman and everyone else are put in reactive mode and kept there for most of the film. The Joker is nihilistic - all he really cares about is creating chaos and destruction - but what makes him so interesting and terrifying at the same time is how smart he is. He gets downright cerebral about his nihilist philosophy. At one point he rails against the good people with authority who rely on planning to maintain order. Well, he makes plans, too, to create sophisticated ways to bring chaos to Gotham. His plans are diabolical: oh, I love to use that word when describing movie villains, and the Joker's plans rival any Bond villain. What adds complexity to the the Joker is his ultimate goal of complete disorder, not riches or world domination. In some scenes he's truly terrifying, giving viewers their full money's worth. Ledger's Joker can best be summed up as cramming the intense characteristics of "nihilistic", "diabolic", and "terrifying" into one relatively small package called "The Joker", then igniting that package and watching Gotham explode with fear and destruction. All Batman, Lt. Gordon, Harvey Dent, and the entire police force can do is race against time to stop one plan after another of the Joker's from setting Gotham ablaze with hellfire.
The psychological foundations of Bruce Wayne-as-Batman don't get the same attention they received in "Batman Begins" because, well, Batman's so busy trying to keep up with the Joker! He just doesn't have time to brood here, not even to mourn the loss of his beloved Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal, taking over for Katie Holmes) to the dashing new district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). But Batman's interaction with the ungodly force of the Joker does lead to some interesting development of the Batman character. To combat the Joker's diabolical nihilism, Batman must stoop to his level, so to speak, and the result is further explication of Batman's place in the world - he isn't an official law enforcement agent so he isn't required to play by official rules, and "The Dark Knight" makes clear that Batman is in fact a vigilante. While "Batman Begins" focuses on the inner psychological forces driving Bruce Wayne to become Batman, "The Dark Knight" explores in a sophisticated way (for comic book movies anyway) the moral and social perils of being a vigilante (albeit a highly evolved one).
Heath Ledger's enthralling performance and the one-way-ticket-to-chaos plot make "The Dark Knight" a must-see movie, but it also has other things going for it. Batman's latest gadget, the Batpod motorcycle, makes an amazing entrance and kicks some Joker ass (for a moment at least). Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox and Michael Caine's Alfred provide old-guy wisdom to Batman's still relatively youthful hero. Gary Oldman's Lt. Gordon has a bigger role than in "Batman Begins", and he shows he can be as tricky as the Joker or Batman. Christian Bale had the unenviable task of sharing the stage with Heath Ledger, but he brings an undeniable force to the role, even if his secret-identity Batman voice makes it seem like he has a bad cold. Co-scriptwriter and director Christopher Nolan does a fantastic job of turning a slow build into a runaway train of intense nail-biting suspense and action, threatening to derail at any time into a moral wasteland.