Awesome and a bit shocking

Rating: 10/10 (27 July 2008)

The Dark Knight. Surely the biggest critics were always going to be the proper Batman fans, those who religiously buy the comics and know every inch of every character and every twisted personality disorder of the Joker. I can still remember the outcry after Tim Burton's first Batman movie showed Jack Napier (who later becomes the Joker) as being the killer of Bruce's parents, and the relief when Joe Chill was correctly shown as the Wayne murderer in Batman Begins. Unlike Burton, Nolan has taken far greater care to stay faithful to the comic source material and this asset has triumphed in this new movie. But what about the Joker himself? This, at least for me, was always going to be the big test. As brilliant as Jack Nicholson was, he wasn't the Joker that I knew and loved. He wasn't the vile menace of The Killing Joke, or the gender-confused cruel genius from Arkham Asylum (A Serious House on Serious Earth), or the sheer embodiment of nastiness from A Death in the Family. Before The Dark Knight, we simply have never seen a "real" Joker rendered on screen in this manner.
I take my hat off (or I would if I wore one) to Nolan and of course to Ledger who have shown the Joker with absolute clarity of vision and loving devotion to the comic source material. This Joker is wild, nasty, scary, sometimes comical, but always chaotic and devastating. This is the Joker many Batfans have waited years - and I mean years - to see. Having now seen the movie I simply cannot imagine any other actor doing this role. Ledger's sad death has totally blown any prospect of the Joker appearing in a sequel. I recently heard Ledger's performance being compared to Frank Booth, as played brilliantly by Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet. I don't think such a comparison is quite on the mark as Booth was an evil scumbag in a purely adult movie, but Ledger's Joker is as equal as a more family-friendly movie will allow it to be.
I found the subtext quite interesting, particularly with reference to the modern times in which we live. Post 9-11 movie makers are all too keen to offer us cautionary tales of governments having too much power, reducing our freedoms, spying on society with countless CCTV and other means, and covering up truths all in the name of "security" and "anti terrorism". And yet here we have the Batman bucking this trend with fearsome aplomb. I am of course referring to the sinister and somewhat highly abusive sonar system Wayne builds in order to find the Joker, virtually spying on every single member of the city for the sake of finding one terrorist. It stinks of the horrid real-world databases and digital footprints and loss of privacy we all seem to endure these days. Does this subtext try to tell us that it's okay for our powerful leaders to adopt fascistic methods in order to "protect" us, that the Batman himself is a lost fascist, or is there a deeper pro-Bush and pro-war on terror message to dig out of this piece of drama? Who knows? The idealism of a fascist "protector" keeping watch over us all didn't escape my attention and I felt my sympathy for the Batman slip somewhat as a result. Some could argue about the Batman's brutal handling of the Joker in the interview room as being a metaphor for oppressive and cruel leadership for the sake of an idealist political stance. We Batfans have always known that Batman operates on the dark side in order to tackle evil, but I cannot fathom why I feel so disturbed to see this manifest in this movie. Batman has become the super hero equivalent of modern western government, eroding public freedoms, following violent and aggressive methods, and even opting for a cover-up and perpetrating a lie to the public in order to save Harvey Dent's reputation.
To draw my own conclusion, The Dark Knight explores the real "super power" that Batman has. That power is financial, political, and social rather than being able to fly or throw flames from his fists. Maybe in Bruce Wayne's eyes, fascism is the only way to operate effectively in difficult challenging times. And without any proper super-powers, Batman has had to turn to extremist totalitarianism in order to build his mythological status.
The Dark Knight is a tremendous movie about extreme crime and one man's attempt to wage brutal war against it. If we are to expect a trilogy then this is going to be one hell of a tough movie to follow. It scores highly on every single aspect: acting, script, directing, music, visual design, pace, character, the whole works. Nothing about this movie is bad and no sections are dull - not even a few moments of it. Movies of this type can, I imagine, only equal The Dark Knight, I cannot see how they can better it. But the best thing is, Nolan and co have done us comic fans proud, making a stunning movie not only for the masses but also for us comic nerds, the biggest critics of such work.