Bats In The Belfry

WOW!

That one word is actually quite sufficient in describing The Dark Knight. I expected it to be good but it was better than even I thought it would be. It turns out that it wasn't just a fluke or miracle of marketing that caused it to beat out Mamma Mia for the week's number 1 spot.

First off, I'm now officially pissed off at Heath Ledger for dying the way he did. It was stupid and preventable and has denied the world of a rare talent. I believe his performance as Ennis in Brokeback Mountain was one of the greatest pieces of acting you will ever see. Acting schools should simply show students people that movie, point at Ledger and say, "Do that." It is amazing to me that Ledger was able to play an emotionally repressed man who was able to let you know exactly how he was feeling. His performance as the Joker, on the other hand, shows us all what Ledger was truly capable of. Ledger is the first actor to truly understand and portray the Joker. When I first heard that Ledger had been cast to play the Joker, I assumed that director Christopher Nolan had lost a bet and been forced to do this. Despite the glowing praise I just handed him, I just couldn't imagine Mr. Easy Going Pretty Boy Ledger playing someone like the Joker. The amazing end result shows why Nolan is a bigtime director and I'm some goob writing about him on an unknown hobby blog.

When I say that Ledger is the first person to understand and portray the Joker, I should have said, "properly portray." The Joker, in movies and television, has always been played for laughs. Jack Nicholson's Joker in Tim Burton's Batman movie came a little closer to what the Joker actually is but even then he was mostly seen as a silly and campy character. Readers of Batman comics books know an entirely different Joker. The Joker is supposed to be a sadistic sociopath. To him, pain and violence are funny. He'll kill people as part of his elaborate criminal schemes or just because he's bored. The best example of this can be found in Alan Moore's 1998 graphic novel The Killing Joke where he forces Commissioner Gordon to watch as he tortures and mutilates Gordon's daughter, Barbara. It is the Joker of The Killing Joke that we see in this movie. Hell, if anything Ledger's Joker is even crazier. The Joker of Batman comic books had his face pulled into a permanent smile by exposure to chemicals. The Dark Knight's Joker simply cut a smile onto his face. Though he offers conflicting explanations as to why, in the end, he did it because he's completely insane.

I've spent three paragraphs talking about the movie's villain but that's because the Joker is the movie's driving force. For all effects and purposes, the Joker takes the world in this movie and remakes it to his liking. When Batman and the authorities of Gotham City start battling the Joker, they have no idea what the hell they are dealing with. Batman doesn't understand that the Joker isn't in this for the money or the power or the glory. He's never met anyone who simply wanted to create as much fear and pain as he possibly could. When the Joker finally manages to collect a vast sum of money, he uses it as fuel to burn a man alive. The Joker seems to exist to destroy Batman. Oh, he was probably always crazy, maybe that weirdo who lives on the street or in a filthy apartment that causes parents to say to their children, "Stay away from that man." No one had ever seen nor heard of him before Batman came along and his fingerprints weren't on file which bolsters the theory that he was just some lonely, anonymous disturbed man who was triggered into action when he first heard of the dark vigilante who moved through Gotham's streets at night.

In a very short time, the Joker holds Gotham City in his grip of fear. He publicly vows to kill people every day until Batman reveals his true identity and turns himself in and that's a vow that he keeps. It's District Attorney Harvey Dent who first comes to realize the madness that the city is now fighting and starts working closely with the Batman to end this reign of terror but that only brings Dent into the Joker's sights. Even when the Joker is captured, Batman doesn't fully understand what he's dealing with. When Harvey Dent is kidnapped, Batman still doesn't understand what he's dealing with and thinks he can simply beat the information he wants out of the Joker. This action has tragic results.

Again, I've been concentrating on the Joker and giving short shrift to the other characters. They're all good. Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and pretty much everyone else turn in excellent performances. It's too bad that they were mostly overshadowed by Ledger's iconic portrayal of the Joker. One of the best comparisons I can think of to this is Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal Lecter, a performance where the actor seems to transcend acting and fully become the person he or she is playing.

I can't believe all this happened in a big summer popcorn movie. I should have spent this entire review talking about the cool stunts, the eye popping special effects and all the awesome explosions. I should have been saying about The Dark Knight what I said about Wanted, that the best we could hope for is a movie whose stunts, effects, and jokes overcome the stupidity of the plot. Instead, we not only have this amazing performance of this incredible character but we also have a plot that, despite the fact that it's about a guy who runs around in a rubber suit, is as intelligent as it is dark. It doesn't supply easy answers in the end and Batman doesn't get to walk off happily into the sunset (or sunrise since he only comes out at night). The Dark Knight asks challenging questions about the nature or courage, purpose, ethics and sacrifice and its answers to these questions, like real life, aren't always just or fair but they are thought provoking.

If all this turns you off from wanting to see it, please ignore everything I've written and start over from here.

The Dark Knight blows lots of stuff up real good. It's not only awesome but it is also Mega-Awesome and sometimes it's even SUPER DUPER ULTRA MEGA-AWESOME!!!! It's the most awesome movie ever and if you miss it then you are not awesome, so go see it.

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