The Dark Knight

Considering the level of talent and money involved, there was no way The Dark Knight—the latest film adventure starring DC Comics’ iconic superhero Batman—wasn’t going to be a good movie. Director Christopher Nolan already proved his chops with 2005′s Batman Begins, which expertly rebooted a franchise that was virtually destroyed by Joel Schumacher’s misbegotten Batman & Robin. In addition, all of the talent he had assembled for that film, from new Batdude Christian Bale, to Michael Caine’s Alfred to Gary Oldman’s James Gordon, were onboard for the sequel, along with a few new faces, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger among them. And if that wasn’t enough, Warner Bros. willingly bankrolled Nolan’s epic vision to the tune of almost $200 million. So again, the chances of The Dark Knight not being good were slim to none. Only one question remained: how good was it going to be? Based on the initial wave of reviews, it sounded like Nolan had made the comic-book equivalent of Citizen Kane. Comparisons to The Godfather Part II were tossed around with careless abandon (thanks Peter Travers!) and the director himself further fanned the flames by yammering on about how his influences ranged from The Empire Strikes Back to Michael Mann’s Heat. It’s fair to say that massive audience that will flock to the The Dark Knight this weekend are expecting to see something that’s more than just a movie—they’re preparing themselves for a full-fledged happening.

So will this rabid mass of moviegoers be satisfied? You’ll have to ask each of them whether or not The Dark Knight lives up to the movie they imagined in their heads. For me personally, it’s a very good movie that falls short of greatness. More than anything, The Dark Knight distinguishes itself from other comic-book movies by its sheer scale. A few weeks back, I praised Hancock for attempting to broaden the scope of the superhero genre by establishing a (spoiler alert!) centuries-long romance between Will Smith and Charlize Theron and shooting most of the big battles with a handheld camera. Knight goes even further in redefining how a comic-book movie should look and the kinds of stories it should tell. The script that Nolan and his brother Jonathan have come up with involves much more than a simple cat-and-mouse game between Batman and his greatest nemesis The Joker (played, as everyone knows, by Ledger in his final completed screen performance). Instead, The Dark Knight strives to be, with apologies to Charles Dickens, the tale of one city and what happens to said metropolis when its confronted by an anarchist with nothing on his mind but destruction.

Without giving too much of the film’s plot away, Knight picks up some time after the events of Begins. Batman’s one-man war on crime has had a profound impact on Gotham City, making the streets safer, the criminals more fearful and, in a particularly interesting development, spurring ordinary citizens to don capes and cowls themselves as amateur vigilantes. More importantly, his activities have empowered Gotham’s idealistic new district attorney Harvey Dent (Eckhart) to go after the various mobsters that still plague the streets. Realizing that their way of life is in danger, the mob strikes an uneasy deal with a new player in town, The Joker, who promises to bring the Bat down. His plan is at once both simple and intricately complex: launch a violent campaign of chaos and disorder that leaves the public fearing for their lives and Batman unable to fight according to his usual rules. Among the innocents hurt by the Joker’s attacks are Gordon, Dent and Rachel Dawes (Gyllenhaal, stepping in for Katie Holmes), the only woman who still holds power over the heart of Batman’s alter ego, millionaire Bruce Wayne.

As you can probably tell, Nolan is working on a giant canvas here and, to be honest, I think he lost control of the story at a certain point. The heart of the movie should be the battle between the Joker and Batman over their ultimate prize, the mind of Harvey Dent. Those fanboys who have read such graphic novels as Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke and Tim Sale and Jeph Loeb’s The Long Halloween will recognize some of the elements the Nolan brothers have worked into The Dark Knight, from the Joker’s mysterious, ever-changing past to Dent’s internal struggle between his love of the legal process and fierce desire to see justice done, even if it has to happen outside of the courtroom. As long as Nolan keeps this conflict at the center of the film, The Dark Knight is involving, sophisticated stuff. It’s when he tries to work in additional subplots—the mobsters that are protecting their interests, the amateur Bat-men fighting crime, Rachel and Harvey’s romance, a detour to Hong Kong—that the film’s narrative goes haywire. Considering where the story heads in the second and third acts, the first half is absurdly overplotted—certain relationships and characters that are established early on all but cease to matter once the Joker starts his reign of terror. Nolan also rushes through scenes that cry out for more detail; in one early sequence, for example, the Joker corners Dent and Rachel at a fundraiser thrown by Wayne. Bruce does a quick change into Batman just in time to save his former flame, but then never returns to the party to make sure that his nemesis hasn’t claimed more casualties.

While we’re listing the film’s flaws, here are a few more:
-Bale’s Batman voice is, I’m sorry to say, absolutely ridiculous. All too often, it sounds like the actor needs to clear his throat of some loose phlegm. Whenever he opens his mouth to speak, one feels the urge to shake with laughter rather than shiver in fear.
-While Gyllenhaal is a big step up from Holmes, Rachel is still an entirely superfluous character, who exists more as a plot device than a fully fleshed out human being.
-Is Eric Roberts seriously the best they could do for the role of mob boss Maroni? His Italian accent is almost as laughable as Bale’s batspeak.
-Clearly The Incredibles doesn’t exist in this universe because otherwise Batman and the Joker would have learned Syndrome’s lesson about the dangers of monologuing. I never like to take a film to task for prizing words over action, but man, these guys talk way too much at times.
-Speaking of action, Nolan displays a firmer hand over the big set-pieces this time around, but he still can’t shoot hand-to-hand combat particularly well. At least in Begins, he could explain away the choppy cutting because Batman himself was a novice fighter. He doesn’t have the same excuse here.

Even with all of these problems, The Dark Knight is a wholly enveloping viewing experience. Nolan’s sweeping camerawork and the stellar production values keep your attention riveted on the screen at all times and the performances across the board are excellent. Bale may not have a strong handle on Batman’s voice, but he nails the character’s inner life. Eckhart is perfectly cast as the crusading D.A. who can never quite control his darker impulses. And then there’s Ledger; watching his live-wire performance here made me feel his loss all over again. I’m not about to say that he’s the best Joker ever, as each actor that’s played the role—from Cesar Romero to Jack Nicholson to Mark Hamill—has brought something unique to the part. But I do think that Ledger’s Joker is the scariest of the lot, mainly because he lacks any semblance of human emotion. In a summer filled with lackluster movie villains, here’s a bad guy that’s more than just a punching bag. Batman may be the star of The Dark Knight, but Ledger makes The Joker into its pitch-black soul.