The greatest superhero film ever made

Rating: 9/10 (1 August 2012)

After the little teaser at the end of Batman Begins (2005) which saw Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldman) show Batman (Christian Bale) a Joker card, signalling a new criminal in town, Christopher Nolan faced the task of bringing one of the most colourful and charismatic, and downright evil and psychopathic, villains in comic-book history to the screen. The role would always be Jack Nicholson's, who brought an eccentric performance in Tim Burton's original Batman (1989), but Nolan had a different take in mind. He was to go back to the roots of the Joker to find what really made him tick. Then he cast Heath Ledger, and the rest was history.
After Batman set out to inspire others to rise up against crime in the first film, Gotham City has a new 'white knight' in the shape of new District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) who faces the challenge of taking down mob kingpin Maroni (Eric Roberts). Chinese accountant Lau (Chin Han) informs Maroni and his crew he has hidden the money they have been laundering through his banks as Dent and Lt. Gordon come down on them. Fleeing to China, Batman uses unorthodox means to bring him to back for questioning. Meanwhile, the psychotic Joker (Ledger), who has been stealing the mobs money, convinces them to employ him to kill Batman, and sets about causing anarchy across the city, promising to kill someone every day until Batman reveals his true identity.
Summing up the film's plot in a few sentences does not do The Dark Knight justice. Nolan has not made a superhero film here, instead he has created a colossal crime story that has more in common with Michael Mann's Heat (1995) than anything produced by Marvel in recent years. It's quite astonishing how he has managed to pack so much plot and incident into its 140 minute running time without ever losing focus, and keeping the film packed with exceptional set-pieces. If Begins felt slightly amateurish at times in terms of action cinema, Nolan has strutted into this film and given us clear and crisp scenes of bone- crunching fighting, as Batman carves his way through henchmen.
Yet the film will always be remembered for one thing, and that is Heath Ledger's Joker. His casting raised eyebrows at the time, wondering if the fuzzy-haired pretty boy from teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) could take the mantle from Jack Nicholson and bring such a wild character into Nolan's grounded Batman universe. He answered his critics with aplomb, creating a now iconic character that will remain possibly the greatest villain ever created in cinema. His red smile has been replaced by large swollen scars, his green hair is greasy and badly maintained, his make-up patched with sweat, and his clothes tatty. "Gotham City deserves a better class of criminal, and I'm gonna give it to them," he says as he sets alight a stack of cash almost double his height. This is a Joker that cares about nothing but anarchy, having no ultimate purpose or goal.
Although the Joker steals the show, this is still Batman's film, with Nolan this time drawing on the similarities between the two characters. They are both freaks and outcasts, as the Joker points out, yet where Batman is fighting a seemingly ill-fated battle against a Gotham that has descended into chaos, the Joker embraces his place in the world as an outsider. In one exceptional scene, Batman interrogates him in a police cell, losing his code and battering the truth out of the Joker. Although Bale's ridiculous gravel-voiced Dark Knight will be parodied, Bale is again outstanding, switching between Patrick Bateman-esque arrogance as he puts on his playboy mask, and the tortured soul, watching his love Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, replacing Katie Holmes) fall in love with Harvey Dent as he sacrifices himself for the sake of the city.
The supporting cast are solid and reliable as ever, with Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman bringing some real weight to the film. Aaron Eckhart, an actor I've felt has gone unappreciated for years after seeing him in the excellent In The Company of Men (1997), is a revelation as Dent. He is a man the city put their hopes into and is determined to make a difference, but the Joker's mayhem tests his sanity and his sense of justice, turning him into the twisted Two-Face (a role made ridiculous by Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever (1995)).
I watched this again for what must be the sixth time, and the first time I've seen in for some time, and was possibly blown away even more than any other viewing. Perhaps this time I was able to grasp the sheer scope and vision of Nolan's world, with he and his brother's screenplay being just as sharp as anything else that year, and the action scenes (which employ minimal CGI) simply explosive. But it is Ledger, ultimately, that will linger in the mind long after the credits roll, from his disappearing pencil magic trick, to his final monologue, his performance is beyond words, and wholly deserved his posthumous Academy Award. I highly doubt The Dark Knight Rises (2012) will surpass this film, but how could it? This is, after all, the greatest superhero film ever made, and I would assume will ever be.
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