Tragedy of the Bat

Rating: Null/10 (11 March 2016)

Considered by many to be Christopher Nolan's best film so far and in many ways his heaviest yet. I mean, it's a superhero film alright, but it's not told like it. It's very much a crime story, almost a thriller, and it deals with heavy themes. Fallibility of man, freedom of choice, demands of power, corruption, madness, inevitability of defeat, human weakness. And at the same time we get our usual Batman goodness with chase scenes, stealth and extremely cool gadgets. And none of it takes away from the heaviness of the story.
Heath Ledger has received unbelievable amounts of praise for his role. And yeah, let's be honest and admit that part of it is because of his untimely demise shortly after filming the said role. But, most of it is because it's simply such a powerful performance. The scene where The Joker goes to talk to the mob nails the character perfectly. Absolutely terrifying and unhinged, but also kind of funny, but in a very lethal way. And this keeps up throughout the rest of the film, with twist after twist, nail biter after nail biter. It's hard to describe this movie scene by scene afterwards, because there are simply so many of them, but it's more about the mood and the inevitability of its conclusion. The Joker and Batman are on a collision course. The unstoppable force is about to meet the immovable object.
This is one of my favourite films. Everything in it works, from actor performances to the technical aspects to the script. And it keeps getting better and better the more I watch it. Some say superhero stories are modern day Greek myths, and I think this is the film where that's truer than ever.