Movies: The Dark Knight

There's really not too much I can say about this film that hasn't already been said.

As the hype suggests, this is indeed the best in what has been a generally good season of summer blockbusters. It is also, without a doubt, the best comic book adaptation ever made, surpassing Batman Begins, as well as other films like Spider-Man 2 or X2: X-Men United (before you ask, no, I don't think Superman: The Movie was a good film, despite the recent apotheosis of Christopher Reeves).

True to its title, The Dark Knight is an extremely dark, complex and gritty film that is likely to turn off some viewers who want their Batman served Adam West-style. There is no easy way to summarize the plot of this film other than to say that the Joker is on a rampage and a lot of shit goes down. This also means that it is not a film for kids. At all. Frankly, I can't imagine any child actually enjoying or understanding this movie, and that's without throwing in the spine-chilling creepiness of the Joker, or the borderline-nauseating appearance of Two-Face. Within the first fifteen minutes of the film the Joker stabs someone in the neck with a pencil for chrissakes. Let the kiddies watch (the Emmy award winning) Batman: The Animated Series instead.

The hype about Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker is all true. He disappears completely behind his character and creates what is arguably the best screen villain since Anthony Hopkins took his first turn as Hannibal Lecter or Kevin Spacey delivered his shocking twist in The Usual Suspects (performances which no doubt inspired Ledger). Bale delivers his A-game, as always, playing Bruce Wayne and Batman brilliantly, although he could have backed off on his gruff Batman voice just a tad and I'm sure no one would have complained. Maggie Gyllenhaal is... well, she's a hell of a lot better than Katie Holmes, lets put it that way. The supporting trio of Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman are perfect in their respective roles, as you would expect. Finally, Aaron Eckhart manages to capitalize on his all-American good looks to deliver a fully realized performance as Harvey Dent, one which makes his inevitable fall from grace all that much more tragic.

While I never read Batman comics as a kid, I did watch Batman: The Animated Series religiously, and it was there that my appreciation for the character began. I've subsequently read three of the all-time classic Batman stories which were used, in varying degrees, as inspirations for this film. Batman: The Killing Joke, written by the incomparable Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta; I'll be speaking more on him soon) delivers what is probably the greatest Joker story ever told. It begins with the Joker's hypothesis that "All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy." Joker attempts to prove this to Batman by terrorizing Jim Gordon and his family, shooting and permanently paralyzing his daughter Barbara in the process. Batman: The Long Halloween (written by Jeph Loeb, who has also worked on Lost and Heroes) is a murder mystery that also delivers the definitive origin of Two-Face and explores the theme of escalation, explaining how Gotham City went from being a mob-run town, to one overrun by costumed freaks. Finally there's The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller (300)'s masterpiece which explores the concept that Batman might be just as insane as the criminals he hunts; an unsettling notion for any Batman fan.
The Nolan brothers have taken these themes and woven them together into an intricate plot that is pushed inexorably forward by the unstoppable force that is the Joker. They've also thrown in a sizable amount of psychology and philosophy, daring to question human nature and the strength of "civilization" in the face of nihilism. I've read many reviews that have labeled Ledger's Joker as an anarchist; this is a misnomer. Anarchists believe in a world without leaders, not a world without order. Joker is a nihilist, through and through and, as Alfred says early on, "some men just want to watch the world burn." This Joker extends his ideas from the individual, to society itself, seeking to demonstrate that men are only as good as their society allows them to be and that "when the chips are down... these 'civilized' people will eat each other." This certainly isn't a new concept and has been demonstrated in film and television as far back as Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone (The Monsters are Due on Maple Street). The Joker excels at presenting people with horrific decisions, making Batman choose between two important people in his life, and giving a group of civilians and a group of criminals a Prisoner's Dilemma scenario in which they must choose between losing their own lives and murdering hundreds of others.

This is deep shit for a Batman movie, no?

The most interesting dynamic of the film is the relationship between Batman and the Joker, or at least, the way in which the Joker perceives it. Here are two men who have completely harnessed their will to power, and re-evaluated their values. While Batman has chosen one virtue for himself, justice, the joker has done away with values entirely, seeking only to entertain himself in whatever sadistic (or masochistic) way he chooses. Yet, the Joker posits that these two titans need each other in order to be whole ("you...complete...me" he says, with mock sincerity). The Joker will never stop killing and causing chaos, while Batman will never kill the Joker, which the only sure way to stop him. They are, in effect, at a stalemate. If we really want to go down the whole "gender and sexuality studies" road, we could easily talk about the homosexual overtones of the Joker's obsession with Batman, but I think that's best left to the imagination... or the porn studios.

The film takes the Joker's hypothesis from The Killing Joke and directs it against Harvey Dent, rather than the incorruptible Commissioner Gordon. As a result of the Joker's scheming, Dent does indeed have one very bad day and we're given an unsettling example of the fragile nature of our adherence to morality. Presented with the unthinkable, Dent renounces everything he had stood for and becomes a vigilante that believes in nothing but the "fairness" of chance, represented here by the flipping of his iconic double-headed coin. Dent is scarred both mentally and physically, becoming Two-Face in the character's most startlingly accurate portrayal yet. Two-Face was always my favorite Batman villain (I have a thing for tragic villains and scarred faces, don't ask me why) so I was glad to see the character finally done justice (as opposed to the horror that was Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever). His appearance in this film is seriously unnerving; my compliments to the make-up and digital FX team that pulled that off.
With any franchise, the question of the next sequel springs to mind almost immediately. The open-ended conclusion to The Dark Knight certainly implies that there is much more story yet to be told, but I can't help but feel that they should stop here. How can they possibly top a masterpiece like this, especially after the tragic death of Heath Ledger? It's unlikely that any other Batman villain will manage to be as gripping or interesting as the Joker, and the part certainly can't be recast after Ledger's iconic performance. Where can they go from here? Other Batman villains like The Penguin or The Riddler seem a little too hokey to fit in to Nolan's vision of Gotham, and they certainly aren't capable of providing a threat on the same level as the Jokey. Still, I wouldn't put it past Nolan and Goyer to come up with something brilliant. Only time will tell.

I highly recommend everyone see this film in IMAX if possibly. The size of the screen, complete with the five or so scenes that were shot specifically for IMAX make the experience of seeing The Dark Knight completely immersive. When Batman jumps off a building you feel like you're jumping with him, and the Joker is just that much creepier when he's 100 feet tall. Finally, I've gotta comment on just how much fun it is to see a movie like this on its opening weekend. There's a kind of excitement and electricity in the air when you watch a movie with fans that are passionate about it that makes it much more enjoyable, even if you aren't much of a fan yourself. The way people spontaneously burst into applause when Gordon captures The Joker midway through the film, or collectively gasped when they saw Two-Face for the first time is a real treat. Movies like this are supposed to be fun, so go enjoy them to the max!

Also: did everyone see the incredible trailer for Watchmen? Mindblowingly awesome. I could probably write a whole entry about the trailer alone (as a matter of fact, I just might). The characters were spot-on, as was the dark, foreboding, pre-apocalyptic atmosphere of the story. Dr. Manhattan? Rorschach's voiceover? The ironic use of The Smashing Pumpkin's The Beginning is the End is the Beginning, from the detestable Batman and Robin? For those of you that don't know, Watchmen is based on Alan Moore's graphic novel of the same name. See? I told you I'd bring him up again. It is generally considered to be the Citizen Kane of comic books and was included as one of Time Magazine's top 100 novels of the 20'th century. I would have gone to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua just to see this trailer.

Ok, well, maybe not. But it's still pretty damn cool.



For those of you that haven't figured it out, my mocking, cynical sign-off line after I've just torn apart another New York City gay bar is a paraphrase of the Joker from this film. I am forever in its debt.