"Dark", baby, dark! The Joker's Wild: Ledger gives a towering performance in one of the year's very best films!

Rating: 10/10 (21 July 2008)

THE DARK KNIGHT (2008) **** Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Eric Roberts, Monique Curnen, Nestor Carbonell, Anthony Michael Hall, William Fichtner, Cillian Murphy, Nicky Katt, Tiny Lister. Filmmaker Christopher Nolan's fantastic interpretation/adaptation of Bob Kane's seminal comic book hero continues its flights of fancy in this amazingly realized sequel incorporating the very dark, dank images of Frank Miller's 1986 take on the eponymous avenger with a tormented Bruce Wayne/Batman (brooding, intensely conflicted Bale continuing to deliver the goods mixing courage and vulnerability and an Eastwoodian rasp as The Caped Crusader) facing many obstacles, namely his boyhood crush/best friend ADA Rachel Dawes (loosey-goosey, unconventional beauty Gyllenhaal, replacing the lush Katie Holmes, and adding some brainy feist) is now hooking up with Gotham's golden boy "white knight" politico/DA Harvey Dent (Eckhart exuding Kennedy charisma to boot) making waves by gunning after a new threat to the fair city: The Joker (the late, stunningly great Ledger in sadly his last completed starring role; a towering, staggering achievement here rivaling Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter in a truly unnerving, creepy villainous turn to last for the ages), a homicidal harlequin, whose terror-inducing anarchy sets the stage for apocalyptic mayhem. Nolan  who co-wrote with his brother Jonathan and David S. Goyer- hatches a decent plot line paralleling the dual dichotomies of his hero and villain both 'freaks' whose psyches are severely hot-wired and ready for action. Ably supported by most of the returning cast from "BATMAN BEGINS" : Caine as manservant/nurse-maid Alfred the Butler continues to be the storyline's underscored conscience; Oldman as Lt. James Gordon the only honest man left in a corrupt city; Foreman as the "Q" to Wayne's Bond has a foxy-loxy air about him; and Roberts handles oily menace as a tough gangster getting in everyone's way. Kudos to the spectacular lensing by Nolan's frequent collaborator the unheralded Wally Pfister; Nathan Crowley's splendid transformation of Chicago into Gotham City and overall production design; John Caglione's amazing make-up inspirations  particularly Dent's tragic "Two-Face" concoction; and the pulsing, throbbing, murkily propulsive score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard.
But the true price of admission is Ledger's feckless, gleefully anarchic virtuoso turn as The Joker, with his sloppily slathered on greasepaint and odd Chicagoan accent (it sounds eerily like Dan Aykroyd in "DR. DETROIT"!), herky-jerky movements, slippery tongue flicking like a louche lizard and a cross between a possessed ventriloquist puppet and Jim Morrison  a resuscitated corpse come to life  is the legendary stuff made especially for cinematic time capsules and a much deserved (posthumously so) Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor. Ledger nails it perfectly so; a thing of rapacious beauty with dank élan.
The film itself deserves many Academy notices including Picture, Director, Make-up and Screenplay to name several; it'd be foolish if it weren't. One of the year's very best films and perhaps one of the best sequels to a franchise.