How Christopher Nolan is changing it all around...

Rating: 10/10 (24 July 2008)

This is not a "superhero movie". That term has become something of a stigma in recent years, commonly attached to miserable excuses for movies like Spiderman-3, Blade Trinity or...Dear God..Ghost Rider. The brother's Nolan are in the FILM business (that is to say, true art on the moving canvas)and in The Dark Knight they bring all their film noir splendor and genius storytelling ability into the realm of comic mythology. This movie is absolutely dazzling and while it demands a great deal from its viewers, it gives so much in return.
The action sequences are mind blowing, their delivery expert and the realism bursts through the seams. Bale cements himself as the ideal Batman, he is brooding and immensely intimidating. Say want you want about the voice, etc. his almost malevolent presence as Batman helps to further distinguish the very real differences between Batman and Bruce Wayne. In either sense, both are tortured individuals seeking truth and a clear path to reason in a chaotic, disassembled world and he triumphs at making us believe that they're two entirely separate individuals.
Ledger...is...classic. There's not a whole lot I can say that hasn't already been said about his performance as the Joker. His clown's ineptitude for logic or sympathy is so believable you'll be looking over your shoulder walking home. Sadist, Narcissist, Murderer...the nouns, adjectives and superlatives to describe his take on the once camped-out Clown-prince are inexhaustible and in some strange way it seems as though he HAD to end with this role, how else could he have ever topped it? Jack Nicholson? He's got The Shining, this one goes to Ledger with king-like propriety. This is the cackling face of unadulterated evil.
The rest of the cast lives up to their street credit in every dynamic. They're not given too much to do, yet it seems like their screen times are just perfect. Between Gordon, Alfred and Fox, virtue is actually made engrossing. Maggie Gyllenhal, steps in for Katie Holmes and did what we wanted her to do in Batman Begins. She acts the perfect part as the wedge between Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne, and while she delivers plenty in veracity she never quite stops being vulnerable. Lastly, Aaron Eckhart plays, perhaps, the most tortured of the lot. His Harvey Dent is so awash in irrevocable good, that his descent into becoming Two-Face is so intensely painful. Unlike Tommy Lee Jones (though the fault essentially rests with Schumaker), This take on Two-Face is unmistakably human and presents us with the bitter fruits of life's travesties. Eckhart is the closest thing in this film to a figure of Greek tragedy and instead of receiving our disdain, he becomes a figure of martyrdom.
The greatness of this film isn't determinable by the measure of its ethical questions and the limits of one's values, nor is it the crisp, almost dreamlike landscape of Gotham where Batman either soars or crashes through, it's the mixture of these two important mediums. Christopher Nolan and co. have dared greatness in a genre that, based on accepted belief, hasn't the facility to do so. This movie is beautifully dark, and proof of something largely visionary at work in the world of Batman. And whether its the Joker spitting his hell-fire canticle of anarchy, Batman cutting through the azure night sky or Alfred waxing philosophical, this movie will stick with you long after you've left the theater and trust me, this film has changed a great many things.