Good Knight

Thank goodness for Joel Schumacher.  If 1997’s Batman and Robin had never been unleashed upon the world and summarily eviscerated by every critic this side of Gotham, someone else might have taken over the reigns of the ham-fisted series that Burton begat and continued churning out similar tripe for years to come.  Instead, Schumacher’s putrid mess of a film left audiences running for the exits and paved the way for director Chris Nolan’s 2005 series reboot, Batman Begins. 

At the risk of sounding like a sycophant, I’ll come clean: I was a huge fan of Batman Begins.  The film was a bit heavy on exposition and light on action, but it was an intelligent and complex take which gave Batman and Bruce Wayne some much deserved depth.  Eschewing comic-book convention and the camp leanings that have long characterized the franchise, Nolan’s interpretation re-invented the Batman mythos while maintaining proper reverence for the source material.  Consequently there’s no movie I’ve looked forward to more over the past year than his follow-up, The Dark Knight. 

As a group of us walked out of the Citywalk IMAX at 1:30 on Tuesday morning, every ounce of enthusiasm and energy drained by the two hour wait for seats and the 152-minute rush of sheer adrenaline that followed, a friend remarked in atypically stoic fashion that she was “satisfied” with the movie.  Satisfied?  The Dark Knight has so galvanized critical and public consensus that, with $158 million in box office, it boasts the biggest opening weekend ever and is currently the #1 rated movie of all time according to IMDB.com (take that, Godfather!).  Satisfied!?!  Surely, I thought, she could be more effusive with her praise.  But the more I considered it, given the hype surrounding the film and our impossibly high expectations going in, I realized that I too was “satisfied” and I believe that satisfaction speaks volumes.  Nolan takes The Dark Knight further than its predecessor in almost every respect, ratcheting up the action and emotional ante to epic proportions while still delivering the intellectually rewarding experience that has characterized his work to date.  The Dark Knight is not without its flaws (chiefly it’s a bit overlong), but it is a very good film, and as a comic book movie it’s transcendent entertainment.

Nihilistic to the core and clocking in at two and a half hours, The Dark Knight is anything but the light fare that usually dominates the summer box office.  Still, the film delivers the requisite blockbuster goods: it’s chock full of gorgeous skyline shots of Chi*ahem* … Gotham and Hong Kong, punctuated by spectacular action sequences, and brimming with incendiary energy.  Most importantly the film feels frightening and honest and surprisingly real, limiting (as much as possible in a comic book movie) the audience’s need to suspend disbelief.  The film’s greatest strength is a dense, tightly crafted script (written by Nolan and his brother Jonathan) that plays more like a gritty crime drama than a comic book, effectively utilizing well-constructed sub-plots and a strong ensemble to explore Nolan’s definition of heroism. 

Picking up ostensibly where Batman Begins left off, Knight finds Gotham’s protector facing something of an identity crisis.  His efforts to rid the streets of organized crime having yielded exponential gains, Batman longs to trade in the cape and cowl for a life of relatively normalcy as billionaire Bruce Wayne.  He still lusts after his childhood sweetheart Rachel Dawes, and in her boss and erstwhile suitor, new Gotham DA Harvey Dent, he sees a different kind of hero preparing to render Batman obsolete.  What Batman/Wayne has not considered is the collective power of the fear he has generated among local crime bosses.  Backed into a corner by his continued assaults on their livelihood, they lash out by turning to the new face of evil in Gotham, and only man they fear as much as Batman — The Joker.  As the Joker launches an all-out assault on Batman, with the fate of Gotham hanging in the balance, the story unfolds in a series of devilish twists and turns that play out at breakneck speed.

Much has been made of Heath Ledger’s final role, and I must admit to a degree of skepticism upon first seeing the words “Best Actor” and “The Joker” bandied around in the same sentence.  Thankfully such talk is wholly justified.  Stripped of a back-story and any apparent motivation aside from the desire to spread anarchy and fear, Ledger’s Joker, a self-proclaimed “engine of chaos”, is more force of nature than man.  As the Joker imposes his will on Gotham, Ledger imposes his will upon The Dark Knight, dominating every scene he’s in without hamming it up or undermining the dark tone of the film.  That Jack Nicholson and Cesar Romero have previously delivered such iconic portrayals of the “Clown Prince of Crime” only makes Ledger’s demented twist on and complete immersion in the role that much more impressive.  His measured speech, uncontrollable fits of malevolent laughter and insidious smile worm their way into your consciousness and stick there well after the credits have finished rolling.  While the Academy may be swayed to deny him a nod either by stigmata surrounding the movie’s pulp origins or the baggage associated with a posthumous award, it’s tough to imagine a much better performance this year, much less 6 of them.

Ledger’s performance may steal the show, but given the caliber of the cast it should come as no surprise that the acting is uniformly excellent.  Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are typically strong despite a relative paucity of material as Bruce Wayne’s closest confidants.  Gary Oldman, best known to popular audiences for playing out-sized screen villains, is unusually reserved as Lt. Jim Gordon, to great effect.  Aaron Eckhart delicately handles Harvey Dent’s fall from grace, and Maggie Gyllenhaal is radiant as assistant DA Rachel Dawes, generating instant sparks with Bale and proving a definite upgrade over the departed Katie Holmes.  Christian Bale is one of the best actors of his generation and he continues his fine interpretation of both Batman and Wayne, but perhaps the most surprising aspect of The Dark Knight is how little time it devotes to focusing on its nominal star. 

Bruce Wayne, sans mask, gets relatively little face time within the epic scope of Knight, and most of it in the film’s first half as the question of Batman’s identity comes under public scrutiny.  His wish to relinquish the mantle of Batman is the character’s primary motivation in the film’s early going, but as his hand is continually forced, the last lingering shreds of his naïveté are stripped away.  As the stakes rise, Bruce Wayne’s basic human desires are subjugated to the will of his nemesis and the needs of his city.  He gradually disappears behind the snarling visage of Batman until he is ultimately consumed, accepting and fulfilling his destiny as the Joker’s allegorical counterpart in Nolan’s powerful meditation on good and evil.