Heroic Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (20 July 2008)

It's nice to know that a film with such high expectations has finally met them. It's record-breaking box office sales certainly do serve to highlight this, having raked in $66.4 million on its opening day and accruing a whopping total of $155 million its opening weekend, breaking both records set by 2007's "Spider-Man 3". With five scenes filmed with IMAX cameras, the untimely death of one of its lead actors and talk of the film being THE summer blockbuster of 2008, it makes one want to buy that extra-large tub of popcorn because it's worth the experience. And experience it you will. "The Dark Knight" has set a new precedent for comic book movies and fan boys everywhere will be gushing praise for Christopher Nolan's artsy and dignified portrayal of one of the oldest and most classic hero-villain combos of all time.
The movie kicks off with a bank heist, Nolan gearing his audience up for the ride of their lives. The robbers don ghoulish clown masks as they spray gunfire about the building and load up cash from the vault. As they scramble to make their getaway, one by one they systematically kill each other, their group impregnated with a sinister paranoia. Ultimately there is just one left standing at the end of it all and he makes a grand exit in a school bus, disappearing into the traffic-riddled metropolis.
Meanwhile, under the assumption that Gotham's most serious threats are now subdued, Batman seeks to share the load by joining forces with Lt. Jim Gordon (Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Eckhart). Gordon's and Dent's staunch approach to upholding the law is just what the city needs in order to dismantle its organized crime, but their dynamic triumvirate proves to be no match for the machinations of a criminal mastermind known only as The Joker. In the instant that the Joker appears, he makes his demands known to the underworld and then proceeds to swoop in and take what he wants by force, despite their refusal to collaborate. Unlike the parasitic villains that had plagued Gotham in the past, The Joker is after a much bigger prize: the capitulation of Batman and the subsequent surrender of Gotham's citizens to his inconstant wiles. In his fight to stop him, Batman will come face to face with good and evil and will choose between maintaining the delicate equilibrium of Gotham or romancing the unattainable.
Director Christopher Nolan strayed from Burton's Gothic surrealism and instead created a brooding and subdued metropolis; he continues this sultry but perilous landscape in "The Dark Knight" and this is the feel that "Batman" was meant to have all along. An original score by James Newton Howard (The Sixth Sense) and Hans Zimmer (Gladiator) breathes even more life into the enthralling action, and with Wally Pfister's superb cinematography and effective editing from Lee Smith, Nolan and crew have created a perfectly-paced thriller that will have you completely oblivious to its 2 hour and 30 minute time frame.
Christian Bale is the best of the caped crusaders yet, his personification of Bruce Wayne the enigmatic and somber soul that has always been portrayed within the pages of DC Comics. I'm sorry to say however that Bale, despite being a great actor, is overshadowed not only by Ledger's spectacular turn as the Joker but also all the mystic buzz that his death inspired. Despite it all, he gives Batman/Bruce Wayne grace and dignity, along with an emotional wound that serves to once again spur his waning battle against terror.
Maggie Gyllenhaal, as said by many critics, is an improvement over the bland Katie Holmes; she shows a bit more spunk and tenacity and the chemistry between herself and Bale is certainly more believable. Caine is dignified and sentimental as Alfred and Morgan Freeman gives another stately performance as Lucius Fox, Batman's highly skilled supplier of all his "wonderful toys".
Who really gets a chance to show some diabolical skills is Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent, the man who would ultimately become Two-Face. Eckhart's make-up job combined with additional CGI is grotesque and awesome in all its glory, combined with a spellbinding portrayal of a man who becomes as cold-blooded as the psychotic who disfigured him. Credit must also be given for a superb and subtle Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon, the man who would be Gotham's future Commissioner.
Though Jack Nicholson was a real hoot as the Joker in Tim Burton's 1989 adaptation, Ledger blows him off the map with an exceedingly strange, devilish and frightening portrayal of madness personified. This Joker is not someone to be trifled with  his "magic trick" involving a pencil will induce shock and disgust and this is in the first thirty seconds that he is introduced face-to-face with the audience. Upon further introduction, none will be able to turn their eye from the haphazardly applied make-up which only serves to highlight his disfigurement, the nasally and freakish intonations, the queer lip-licking and the unpredictability of his reflexive malice.
Heather Ledger is, quite simply, marvelous.
This will no doubt earn him a posthumous nomination for Best Actor come 2009's Oscars, possibly even a posthumous win. Watching Ledger cause his audience to shiver is bittersweet  it evokes the same "what might have been" sadness that River Phoenix, another young promising talent, did with fans when he died suddenly from a drug overdose in 1993. I didn't want the movie to end because I knew that there would never be a reprise from this actor so adept at his craft, let alone a repeat performance of the maniacal Joker in a potential sequel.
Bottom Line: A tour de force on all levels. Though you be an action fan, a comic book nerd or simply a movie buff, all elements of the film will have you lying in wait eagerly for a sequel. It just can't get here soon enough.