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Review by Jeremy Welsch

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I did my absolute best to keep my expectations for The Dark Knight in check. Considering the fact that the viral marketing for this film started 2 years ago, the very notion of the film succeeding on any level due to the weight of its own designed expectations wasn't just preposterous – it was unimaginable. Yet the truth is that as overdone as the marketing seemed to be, the greatest prank the campaign pulled was fooling us all into thinking we were prepared for what we were about to experience.

For anyone reading this, you already know enough of the plot to get us started – Batman and the Joker battle for supremacy in Gotham. The first thing I noticed about the film was that it has a completely different feel to any other movie based on a super hero or comic book character. You almost immediately forget you are watching a superhero, or even a Batman movie, as it hits the ground running with a bank heist. Instantly it has the feel of Michael Mann’s Heat. As the movie tears on, you realize that you aren’t watching a comic book movie at all but rather a sophisticated crime drama that just happens to be housed within the walls of the superhero genre. That is just one of the many surprises Christopher Nolan built in for viewers.

As a general rule of thumb, comic book/superhero movies stick to a couple of basic ground rules: good versus evil where the hero is matched against a villain attempting to inflict peril on an unsuspecting city or group of people. To simply say The Dark Knight is different may be the understatement of the year. Nolan digs much, much deeper and gives us a movie that is far more complex than that simple premise. In Batman Begins, we saw the the transformation of Bruce Wayne into Batman. The Dark Knight asks, “What now?” The answer is that Wayne has grown weary of his role as Gotham’s savior after being unjustly labeled a vigilante killer by the very city he has been trying to protect. The timing of the Joker’s introduction only compounds his dilemma further. The Joker is at first hell-bent on destroying Batman through humiliation by repeatedly asking him to reveal his true identity. He pursues his murderous rampages and lays all the blame at Batman’s feet. And everyone buys into the Joker’s plan. In the meantime, Batman/Bruce Wayne and Gotham have put all their faith in the city’s new District Attorney, Harvey Dent, to rid the town of crime once and for all. It’s quite a little love triangle as each man realizes that he needs another to fulfill his own agenda. Wayne needs Dent to help him leave the life of Batman behind; the Joker needs Batman to feed his own anarchistic tendencies, and at one point or another, Dent needs them both. The line of morality gets more and more blurred the deeper in we go. What is right and wrong in the name of right and wrong becomes the greater question as we further descend into the darkness of the human soul. It is that exploration that gives this film its bite and sets it apart from anything that has gone before it.

The creation and development of Bruce Wayne’s alter-ego is contingent on him spending his time developing new weapons and armor in an effort to make himself as indestructible as he can because he is a superhero without super powers. Batman is merely human and he knows his limitations. Where the Joker succeeds as an adversary is not by attacking him physically but because he knows what makes Batman the way he is, or what he has become. His attempted physical attacks are drawn from his understanding of the darkness in which Batman exists. His weapon is knowledge and it is with this that he inflicts the most damage on Batman.

For all this movie’s haunting moral complexities, it would be nothing without the excellent performances from its superlative ensemble cast. Where do you start? Heath Ledger gives the performance of a lifetime – his or anyone else’s – as the Joker. His performance will go down as one of the greatest movie villains of all time, right next to Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, Darth Vader in Star Wars, and Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange. It comes therefore as no surprise that he seemingly pulled inspiration from all three. His Joker is sadistic, nihilistic, shows no empathy and is completely devoid of any character arc. What’s more, Ledger disappears into the role not just in his over-the-top approach to the character, but in the subtleties - the way he carries himself, the way he licks his lips like a rabid dog in between lines of dialogue, and even the Joker’s trademark maniacal laugh has a psychotic tinge to it. As sad as it is that Ledger is not around to see and promote the film, it only fuels the performance further. In the same way that the movie gives us no explanation as to the Joker’s origin, we are also left to wonder just how Ledger managed to bring that character to life the way he did. His interpretation is perfect in every sense of the word and the lack of clarification makes it only more haunting. It is hard to overlook the impact his death had on the movie but if he wins the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (as he deserves to do), it will be because he gave us a brilliant performance, not because he can’t do it again.

Yet, as great as Ledger is, you can’t overlook the performances of the rest of the cast. Aaron Eckhart as the no-nonsense DA Harvey Dent and his eventual transformation into Two-Face is beautifully tragic and he plays both sides to the hilt. Dent balances out the film as he provides the character arc that the Joker could not. Maggie Gyllenhaal makes us all (happily) forget that Katie Holmes ever had anything to do with these movies. Michael Caine as Alfred and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox provide balance and wisdom in their respective roles. And Gary Oldman gives another understated performance as James Gordon. With a cast as strong as this, you start to gravitate away from the silly notion that seasoned and accomplished actors don’t belong in a genre movie like this.

At the end of it all, you have a swiftly paced 2 ½ hour movie that achieves everything it set out to realize, and with respect, actually makes all previous Batman films seem worse by comparison. Nolan has created a masterpiece that will stay with you long after you finish watching it. Superman may have laid the foundation of the superhero genre movie, and Spider-Man may have turned it into a profitable business, but The Dark Knight transcends the genre by raising the bar and turning it into an art form.

Jeremy's Film Rating: **** out of ****

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