Haunting, thoughtful, intense, brilliant

Rating: 9/10 (18 July 2008)

Saw the movie today and I cannot get it out of my head; this is an incredible movie. Intense. Thought-provoking. I was drawn in and on the edge of my seat from the first scene to the last, and Christopher Nolan wisely followed the old stage advice to "leave them wanting more." Everything you've heard about Heath Ledger's "Joker" was deserved; he's iconic, he steals the show, and he is one of the most frightening villains I've seen since Kevin Spacey's killer in Seven, or Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal in Silence of the Lambs. Honestly, I'm hoping I don't have nightmares. And yet he still makes you laugh; believe me, you'll be glad for the comic moments amid one grisly criminal rampage after another. And it's not so much about his sadistic killings, which are mercifully barely off-screen most of the time. It's about what he says...his delivery; the creepiness and absoluteness of his anarchy. This is an intellectual Joker, yet a frightening mystery. For example, he enjoys rattling off varying, horrifying stories explaining his famous facial scars, and the audience doesn't know what to believe. And that's the point. You never know what he's capable of doing next.
Maggie Gyllenhall puts Katie Holmes to shame as Rachel Dawes, and she's believable as a prematurely wizened, toughened young assistant D.A. Aaron Eckhart is excellent in playing the subtle ambiguities of a Harvey Dent walking a thin moral line even in the early stages of his moral crusader-ship, when he has just one face; bring your barf bag for his slide into a wicked transformation. Bale can do no wrong in my eyes, and here he gives another impressive turn providing a brooding and conflicted anchor to the story as a Bruce Wayne who's not sure he wants, or that Gotham needs, the burden of Batman. Gary Oldman as Lt. Gordon, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, and Michael Caine as Alfred, all put in the expected solid supporting performances that make this film's core character group seamless.
The play between morality and anarchy, or chaos and order (both sets of images are alluded to by the characters), is the core to the conflict between Batman and Joker in the film. We wonder if the Joker's seemingly sincere caveat at the beginning of the film that the criminal underworld should "Kill the Batman" might just be a ruse; we find that the Joker might just very much need and want the Batman around (he's too much FUN!). He's an excellent foil for the Joker's ingeniously sadistic criminal scenarios, meant to taunt society's and Batman's moral notions of right and wrong, played out with human lives as simply collateral damage. The superb writing gives us a lot of dialogue from the Joker and Batman about this conflict, and it's going to make you think, folks...amid the carnage anyway.
Know that the film is LOUD, and the pace and action relentless. I suppose it's true genre is Tragedy. It is intentionally "Dark" indeed; it felt like a thriller, even a horror film at moments, inducing a pervasive sense of dread. But it is so engaging and entertaining that you'll find yourself enrapt as 2 hours and 40 minutes whiz by and you're left wanting more. This film is why we--that is, 12 years old and up on this one folks--go to the movies.