How About a Magic Trick?

There are basically two groups of people in the world right now:

1. People who have seen “The Dark Knight,” and who love it. That is many of you reading this, and let us now share a snicker together at the scene referenced by the title. Let’s take a minute and remember how terrifyingly awesome that scene was. Then remember another. Then another. Mmmmm.

2. People who have not partaken of “The Dark Knight,” and those who didn’t like it. We, group number one, are not angry at either; nay, we simply pity thee. Thou art adrift in a barren desert of cinema, not comprehending the balmy oasis of dramatic complexity and jaw-dropping action which passes by you undetected. Consider yourself in our prayers.

As I’m sure you’re aware, “The Dark Knight” came out. Rest assured, I am absolutely going to review the heck out of it, because that’s the special honor it deserves, but first I’d like to drop a little knowledge on you. As of right now, “The Dark Knight” is holding four world records: it is the first major studio movie to utilize an IMAX camera (although they didn’t shoot the whole movie that way), it is the most lucrative midnight showing of any movie in history (it made $18 million off of midnight showings alone, not counting the 3 am and 6 am bookings that had to be added), it’s the biggest opening day (taking in around $67 million, which beats out “Spider Man 3″‘s $55 million or so), and it has also clinched the biggest opening weekend with $155 million, again robbing the title from the terrible “Spiderman 3.” I find it highly unlikely the film will not continue on its present course, because movies with good reviews and positive audience reactions tend to have legs, and “The Dark Knight” has those things. “Spider Man 3″ had a knockout opening, but the movie was a huge disappointment and quickly sank. “The Dark Knight” has come out swinging even harder, and by all accounts it’s going to keep going from here.

All right, folks. I haven’t done a review in a long time, but since this movie has arrived I feel it’s time for me to come out of retirement, crack my knuckles, and get to work.

“The Dark Knight”: 5 out of 5 stars.

Let’s just get right down to it, shall we? “The Dark Knight” is the greatest movie I’ve ever seen; if you want my honest opinion, I think it’s one of the greatest movies ever made. It’s a movie so completely two things at once it demands more than a single viewing. As a drama, its complexity is on par with the great crime dramas like “The Godfather” and “Heat.” As an action movie, its “we really did it” stunts and nail-biting suspense evoke the technical mastery of Frankenheimer’s “Ronin” and the relentless tension of Hithcock. When was the last time a superhero movie dropped you into the middle of a Sophie’s choice? How about two or three of them?

Assuming total ignorance of the film’s plot, I will endeavor to maintain that state while indulging only the briefest of story overviews: Batman has been operating in Gotham for around a year, and the political, social and criminal climate is beginning to react to him in both good and bad ways. For the good, there’s a new crusading district attorney named Harvey Dent who symbolizes a hope that the city has never dared to maintain. In the bad column, a psychopathic madman called the “Joker” has begun a string of masterfully executed crimes aimed precisely at pushing the Caped Crusader to his breaking point, and bringing Gotham City down into utter chaos.

“The Dark Knight’s” legacy will be that it changed the face of the superhero movie by loading it with moral dilemnas and flawed, three-dimensional characters. Although many noble efforts from Dick Donner’s “Superman” to the recent “Iron Man” have begun forcing the genre to be fully appreciated by a mainstream audience, they have all more or less danced the campy dance required of them. Even Nolan’s previous effort in the Bat-universe, “Batman Begins,” happily embraced an over-the-top climax in homage to its roots. Honestly, that makes a lot of sense to me–it must have taken some time to get the courage worked up to make a summer blockbuster whose heart beats like an American tragedy.

As a superhero movie, Chris Nolan’s “Knight” is a brutally subversive film, much like the cackling villain it contains. It is a piece of cinema escaping from its own genre by rewriting the rules of its cliches. It must provide action sequences, so it does, but it wriggles from its shackles by making those scenes more about nail-biting suspense than anything else. Instead of sitting back and detaching, we grip our seats and hold our breath. We demand that it give us an entertaining villain, and it complies, but the monster Nolan unleashes completely blindsides the audience. The Joker is fully evil, more capable of anarchy and madness than we’d ever imagined, and the questions he asks the Dark Knight (and by proxy the audience) about human nature and ethics haunt us in the parking lot as we fumble for our keys. He’s also the most compulsively watchable, drop-your-jaw stunning screen character in a decade or more; you simply have not experienced a shiver down your spine like this since Hannibal Lecter. Anton Chigurh from “No Country for Old Men” seems like a poodle by comparison.

Although Heath Ledger’s Joker is deservedly kicking up a lot of dust (more on him later), the movie that surrounds him is equal to his greatness. “The Dark Knight” offers greatness in every department. Christopher Nolan has honed his action directing considerably, letting the scenes breathe more and maintaining a heightened sense of danger. Even more impressive, however, is that he has made the quiet scenes the *real* pay-off moments. Don’t get me wrong, “The Dark Knight” can go toe-to-toe with anything as an action movie, but the human element is where the real meat is. When our heroes and villains start really talking to one another, Nolan does what only the best directors do: he unleashes his actors and gets the hell out of the way, making his camera as invisible as he possibly can. He wants us all the way into the scene, completely lost in the moment, unable to remember the corners of the movie screen. He succeeds. As magnetic as the Joker and Batman are in combat, when the war turns psychological the movie sinks its teeth in.

Acting is another base covered, and it’s covered very well. Christian Bale, like his director, has shaken off any possible timidness around Batman and now portrays him with authority. I loved in particular how Bruce Wayne’s face would grow dark and serious when the Joker popped up on the evening news–I felt like I could see the beast rising out of him. Bale has always been a fan favorite in the role, and it’s hard to imagine anyone else under the cowl. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman reprise their roles with grace and class, and the script rewards them both with more screen time. Alfred and Lucius Fox respectively are both larger players in the story, each at some point forced into as much conflict as agreement with the titular hero. Maggie Gyllenhaal replaces Katie Holmes, and I think I speak for us all when I say, “thank God.” She’s a tall, stunningly beautiful woman with fiery intelligence and real courage in the face of danger. The love triangle she creates between Bruce, herself and Harvey makes a lot of sense.

Speaking of the new district attorney, Aaron Eckhart is really the unsung hero of this picture. Providing the story arc’s backbone, he commits completely to Harvey Dent and sucks the audience into the romance of the character. But the darkness is already there before tragedy steps in: Dent is a man a little too dedicated to getting his results, and we see before his first scene is over that there are disturbing lengths he might go to if pushed. I liked in particular how Eckhart’s voice would sharpen into a furious bark when his character lost control of his temper; every time it happened, the audience I saw the picture with jumped a little.

Gary Oldman as Lt. Gordon is utterly stunning, a complete revelation. In “Batman Begins,” his honesty and slightly clumsy disposition was a wonderful foil for Bale’s primal physicality, and a fresh take on the character. But in “The Dark Knight,” Gordon is an older and harder man, only more devoted to his ideals as the challenges pile up on him. In every little moment of his portrayal, Oldman conveys a thoroughly decent man, and he does it so quietly that he tricks the audience into thinking they figured it out for themselves. “The Dark Knight” may be Batman’s show, but Gordon gets a much bigger piece of the pie this time around, the audience is more than happy to see it.

And now comes the part of the review where I discuss Heath Ledger. You’ve all heard it before, and it was absolutely true, he’s a walking event. Acting this great does not belong to the realm of discussion, it is a matter of simply watching it. Many have speculated that the movie will be tinkered with by Ledger’s unfortunate death, but the cackling monster that inhabits this movie will never for a single moment register as “Heath Ledger, Australian actor” in your head. You will see only “The Joker.” He is just so damned *good,* there isn’t any way to do it justice, but let me try this way: there is a brief moment in this film when the Joker is not wearing his make-up (I won’t get into why), and he still doesn’t look like Heath Ledger. He stares straight into the camera, but it just isn’t him. Don’t let anyone tell you the make-up department did the heavy lifting, it was Ledger from the start. He’s not only the best Joker of all-time, I would submit he is the equal, if not the better, of any screen villain as well.

So “The Dark Knight” acting and directing down so far, but the script has to come through for the whole thing to work, and it does. There were several ways to play this movie, but Jonathan and Christopher Nolan opted for the gutsiest path they could imagine: an epic movie, stuffed with plot and speeding desperately along to contain it all in under three hours. The movie races to its finish line, but it never frenzies, and the “excessive” length some are complaining about is the result of key scenes being allowed to linger long enough to savor. I love watching this movie set its goal almost impossibly high, and then fling itself towards it with total commitment and no fear.

More than that, though, “The Dark Knight’s” script is the root of how radical a departure it is from what has gone before. Batpods and mid-air rescues are here, but Chris and Jonah unapologetically push their Batman to the brink of his body and his mind. Their movie is rich and exhilarating, but it aims for “thrilling” instead of “fun,” and it hits the target right on its head. Ever since Ang Lee made a mopey mess of “Hulk,” no one has dared try this, but the Nolans are unafraid, and their gamble pays off. The idea of watching a bunch of fluff violence no longer sounds appealing once this movie gets going; it sounds kind of…silly.

“The Dark Knight” is also already resonating on a deeper emotional level with its audience. Interviewers are constantly badgering Nolan to “fess up” to making a thinly veiled movie about the war on terror, but he consistently denies it because, quite frankly, it isn’t true. What the director *did* do was make a movie about themes that are applicable to the entire scope of human history, so a person with the Iraq war on their mind is going to see parallels and readily as someone fascinated by the Roman empire. “The Dark Knight” deals with the basic quality of human nature, the need for order and ethics, and whether or not certain lines can or should be crossed. It’s a movie about a broken social contract between a state and its people, and whether or not violence can repair that bond. It’s also about the human species: how completely hypocritical and vile we’re capable of being, and yet how great we might become if we demand it from ourselves. The trappings of a superhero movie work perfectly to let these deeper issues sneak up behind us as we’re dazzled by heroism and villainy. “The Dark Knight” is a perfect marriage of a drama and a superhero movie. It is, fundamentally, a story about how hard goodness is to keep up, how tempting evil always makes itself, and how terrifyingly free we each are to choose between them.

Well that’s that. Next time I’m going to launch into a VERY SPOILER-FILLED examination of the moral issues the movie present for those of you who have seen the film.