It all just fits

Rating: 9/10 (19 March 2009)

What makes the Dark Knight special in the (very large) pantheon of action-blockbusters is the way it all fits together.
Here we have a very large, very dense two-villain comic-book story told in such a smooth, inter-related way that when the second villain finally emerges it feels entirely natural, as if that character could exist in no other way.
We have the anarchist-Joker, who could have been a typically psychotic antagonist, taken to such a surreal extreme that he jumps right over "crazy" and lands on "evil." Yet the character never seems artificial or one-note. This Joker comes from nowhere, seemingly fully formed, an all-powerful super-villain, almost omniscient, practically teleporting, seemingly invincible, and still he somehow feels like a real person.
The film's main theme is terrorism, a rather thin-ice topic, but its approached in an honest and non-judgmental way that I found tremendously refreshing. Nothing is heavy-handed or preachy, nor is there any clear moral or conclusion. The thematic elements are subtle but present, and you the viewer are left to construct your own message, which is exactly how it should be done in a film aimed at adults.
But it's still a blockbuster, and that's right too. Steps are taken to bring realism to Batman's world, but the character's comic-book origins are not forgotten or discarded. Batman and the Joker are, without explanation, super-powered, which is after all what we came to see.
If there's any real flaw it's that the action scenes are rather ho-hum compared to the drama. Only the car chase is memorable (despite being confusing spatially) and even that wouldn't make anyone's top-5. That this weakness isn't more disastrous (or even particularly consequential) in an action film shows just how good the whole really is.
Because in the end, it all just clicks. You get the feeling that what you watched was complete, and that nothing could or should have been different. Of course it's not perfect -- nothing is -- but fewer mistakes were made here than in any other action movie I can think of. This is what all blockbusters should aspire to be.