Best "Batman"? Yeah. Best thing in it? Both role and portrayal of the Joker.

Rating: 7/10 (21 July 2008)

One of the things that makes young actor Heath Ledger's death from an overdose last winter most grievous--apart from the gratuitous loss of any young human life--is that he, and his role as the Joker--are the best things about "The Dark Knight"--the latest in the Batman film franchise.
Both the role and its realization by Ledger represent the most credible portrayal of a movie villain in films that are based on comics, or that, like in the James Bond franchise, are usually cartoonish. (Consider that the typical Bond villains are what Mike Myers, most notably, parodies in his Austin Powers films, in the portrayal of "Dr. Evil." These quintessential miscreants who, often, seem to be motivated by world domination and or great riches, nonetheless seem to be inexplicably single-minded, blindered, and one-dimensional in their badness.) By contrast, the role of the Joker as written in "The Dark Knight" offers one of the most credible, well articulated visions, rationales for this antagonist's motives and actions. And, as has been more or less universally noted, Ledger's realization of the character is incredibly masterful, even nuanced, despite its obvious grotesque and larger-than-life qualities.
The soliloquies in which the Joker articulates his dedication to cultivating chaos, vs. the well-laid plans and, he avers, "schemes" of society are among the most successful articulations of a point of view and impulse to dedicated psychopathic evil-doing. What's more, in a testament to the vision of those who came up with the story, this version of the character, and his lines, his apparent "backstory" is carefully crafted as a red herring. In one tete-a-tete, the Joker explains one origin of his disfiguring scars, which suggest a mocking grin. But wait--while threatening co-star Maggie Gyllenhaal with a similar disfigurement, the story is entirely different. While some films legitimately seek to humanize real or fictional figures as, while perpetrators of horrific crimes (think of "Monster's" characterization of murderous prostitute Aileen Wuornos, for one), the device in the case of Ledger's Joker rightly deprives him of an unwarranted overhumanization. At the same time, the writing and portrayal keep this Joker in the realm of something potentially real--still ineluctably human--as opposed to Jack Nicholson's and Cesar Romero's past, overly stylized and cartoonish creations. Obviously, the awesome makeup and costume design for the character support these effects, but they would hardly do the job on their own.
Other than on those merits, the film is good, maybe very good; not great--typically, not worthy of the hype and anticipation these kinds of presumed blockbusters generate. And I say that with no lack of regard for Chris Nolan (I love "Memento") and the film's other creators. It's just that I, perhaps more than more typical moviegoers, just can't work up much genuine buy-in to these comics-based extravaganzas. In this case, the film is long, and, at least for me, has too many interim climaxes. Of course, the first capture of the Joker is just too easy to be final ... but the number of reversals and resurgences and climactic twists that require heroic resolution and which propel the plot ambulations, were, to me, eventually emotionally deadening. At least the film discards some classic story and film-making conventions in order to further the story--like the kind of breakthrough risks "Seinfeld" took in its willingness to have really bad things happen to people, as the setup for the conceptual humor of the initially revolutionary sitcom. (E.g., an attractive and sympathetic character's experiencing significantly disfiguring, botched cosmetic surgery, as a foil for George's and Kramer's neurotic propensities. Numerous other examples could be adduced.)
Ultimately, while the film seems less hokey and far-fetched than most in the genre--less so even than the plot line of, and caricatures populating, Nolan's initial venture in the franchise--it finally descends thereto with the fate of Aaron Eckhart's crusading do-gooder prosecutor character, Harvey Dent. ("Dent" as in his chin cleft?)
Further, while the overall arc of the movie offers to explain how Batman came to devolve from a mere outlaw vigilante theoretically wanted by the law but really covertly valued by Gotham as a whole, into a true outcast--a reviled figure who is perceived as having made too many moral compromises in order to give the apocalyptic city not "what it deserves, but what it needs"--it churns through a lot of bodies, special effects and somewhat wearisome exposition and development getting to that moral. Christian Bale's somewhat flat characterization seems hardly to carry that theme--his flippancy as Bruce Wayne and menacingly gravelly voice when he's Batman just don't flesh his character's demons out in a meaningful way.
While the film is mildly satisfying in view of that theme (like the last-produced "Star Wars" movie was in its depiction of Anikin Skywalker's transformation into Darth Vader), the true enjoyment comes from watching Ledger. Fortunately he's on screen a great deal.
I stayed through the credits to make sure there was a gesture made to his loss and memory. There was. It is, in the universe of filmed entertainment--with the thought-provoking lessons it can, at its best, offer--quite a loss indeed.