Absolutely stunning!

Rating: 10/10 (25 July 2008)

In 2005, Christopher Nolan reinvented the superhero movie with Batman Begins - not a bad thing, given Spider-Man 2 had practically achieved the same goal the year before. Now, history repeats itself with The Dark Knight: technically, it's the sixth Batman movie (or seventh, if you count the 1966 TV show tie-in), but it leaves you feeling like the previous entries never existed. Yes, even Begins.
The first chapter of Nolan's Bats reboot ended suggesting the sequel would revolve around a certain clownish criminal who sees everything as a big joke and signs his horrific deeds with an instantly recognizable "calling card", and indeed it does: five minutes into The Dark Knight, and after a bank job that looks more like Michael Mann than Chris Nolan, we are face to face with the Joker (the late, astounding Heath Ledger), who greets us with one of his trademark outbursts of twisted logic: "I believe that what doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger.". Unlike any other foe Batman (Christian Bale) has ever faced, he isn't in it for the money, like Gotham's current mob boss Salvatore Maroni (Eric Roberts), or anything else: he just wants to spread chaos and anarchy, killing good guys and bad guys in equal measure. In order to stop him, Batman and Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) seek the help of the city's new District Attorney, the charismatic Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), who also happens to be dating Bruce Wayne's former squeeze Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal, who does a more convincing job than Katie Holmes).
Of course, things aren't easy. As Dent points out: "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain". That's a phrase whose full meaning is revealed to terrible effect during the film, as the Joker's insane antics push Batman into the one direction he swore to stay away from: killing. The Dark Knight is as much a morality tale as it is a summer blockbuster: the title indicates a bleaker atmosphere will permeate the picture, and that's exactly what happens - even Alfred (Michael Caine) and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), who provided the comic relief in the first movie, have a different function now that Gotham's fate looks worse than ever, courtesy of a make-up-wearing, constantly laughing maniac.
In many ways, the movie belongs to the Joker, just like Tim Burton's version did in 1989. Ledger's take on the character, however, is completely different from Jack Nicholson's dandy interpretation, which became a successful blueprint for subsequent celluloid villains lifted from comics. The 21st century Joker is a pure psychopath, not a buffoon. His pranks aren't amusing, they're terrifying and very often lethal. He's a masochistic, fearless nihilist, played with tons of courage by a Ledger at the top of his game, a fact that makes his premature death (and the dedication in the end credits) even more unbearable than it already is. Talks of a posthumous Oscar are fully justified, since this is the culmination of his career, although the Academy has the annoying tendency to ignore acting in films like this (see Alec Guinness in Star Wars or Ian McKellen in The Fellowship of the Ring). Still, some sort of honorary recognition would be more than appropriate, since he has taken the essence of a comic-book character and made him so much more, a symbol of true evil that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the equally iconic - and scary - Alex DeLarge, Hannibal Lecter and Keyser Soze.
But then again, is this film really all about the villain? No. At its core, The Dark Knight remains a movie about Batman himself, a man burdened with guilt and destined to loneliness. In fact, while the previous entry in the franchise focused largely on how he became the crime-fighter he is today, not one minute of this installment deals with the Joker's origins: when we first meet him he's already the most feared criminal in Gotham, and the few references to his past that come out of his mouth reflect his celebrated line from Alan Moore's graphic novel The Killing Joke: "Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes the other. If I'm going to have a past, i prefer it to be multiple choice!".
The Killing Joke also inspires the film's biggest theme: the similarities between Batman and his nemesis. This isn't exactly a new element in Nolan's filmography: from Leonard and Teddy in Memento to Angier and Borden in The Prestige, he's always been concerned with the complex relationship that shapes up between two enemies. This time he offers his most radical take on the subject, with an interrogation scene that goes hand in hand with the coffee shop sequence in Michael Mann's Heat (another important influence, by the director's admission): "I don't wanna kill you!" the Joker tells the Caped Crusader. "What would I do without you? [...] You... complete me. [...] To them, you're just a freak. Like me!". The comics have consistently suggested the Dark Knight and his most famous nemesis are really just two sides of the same coin. Nolan brings that theory to the screen with a visual and narrative boldness previously unheard of in the superhero genre, with a possibly even more disturbing variation on the theme coming in the shape of Aaron Eckhart's unsettling performance (the less said about it, the better: it has to be seen to be believed).
Moral ambiguity, madness, bravery, betrayal, vengeance, responsibility, all in one movie. Shakespeare? No, just a damn smart, daring genre picture that goes beyond its paper roots and transforms into a cinematic tragedy of rare power and beauty. It will take something special to top this epic achievement.