The Dark Knight

"Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."

Let's get this part out of the way first: I am not going to join the hordes of delirious fanboys on IMDB who have unanimously claimed The Dark Knight to be the best movie ever made (and I suspect their collective afterglow will last only until The Hobbit comes out). Yes, this was a very good movie and certainly one of the best comic book themed films in the long history of the genre, but it's also nowhere near as flat-out enjoyable as genre benchmarks Superman, Spider Man II, and, yes, Batman Begins.

If nothing else, you haveAs was the case with Batman Begins, this is primarily a deadly serious exercise: whole reels of The Dark Knight feel more like a "straight" crime film where the protagonist just happens to wear a full body black kevlar costume with a flowing cape than any comic book movie I have ever seen. It's also oddly thoughtful for a summer action flick: returning director Christopher Nolan has no problem steering the movie into discussions on the natures of heroism, vigilantism, and that post-September 11 perennial: privacy versus security.

Before your eyes begin to glaze over, The Dark Knight always remembers after a few minutes of dialogue that it is a summer movie after all (and one based on a long-running comic book character to boot). Thus, every scene of indulgent, chin-stroking rumination over sundry aspects of the human condition is generally followed by people in costumes kicking each other's asses around the block and/or blowing shit up.

Unless you've been in a cave the last seven months, you're probably aware that most of the media hype surrounding The Dark Knight centers on the late Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker. Just how much of an effect Ledger's untimely death had on the absolutely insane box office this film is presently pulling down is impossible to know for certain, but I'm pleased to report that the acting does, for once, live up to the advance notice. Ledger gets some of the biggest laughs to be had during the movie (he is playing The Joker, after all), but his Joker is far less a jolly buffoon than a shambling, vaguely reptilian escapee from a supermax prison. The eerie thing about Ledger's Joker is that this repulsive, pitiless sociopath manages to get under your skin in the same way Anthony Hopkins' turn as Hannibal Lecter wound up in your head after The Silence Of The Lambs: it's a magnetic, disturbing performance and alone worth the price of your ticket.

Elsewhere, the acting on the whole in The Dark Knight is arguably on a higher plane than Batman Begins, with Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman as dependable as ever, with Maggie Gyllenhaal making a fine impression as Bale's old flame and Aaron Eckhart playing the most overtly comic-booky role of the bunch as the Sir Galahad-styled Gotham City D.A. Harvey Dent.

Now comes the spoiler-proof rub: for the first time since I've started following his work, Nolan over-reaches during the course of The Dark Knight and tries to pack just a bit too much plot into what is initially a near-faultless work. It almost feels like Nolan realized that "oh, hey, we have a movie to wrap-up here" about two hours in, and the epic ending sequence that follows unfortunately starts to feel tacked-on and increasingly unnecessary (and perhaps a bit similar to Spider Man 3).

One last tangent: this was one of the "hardest" PG-13 films I've ever seen (I had to check the promotional poster in the lobby as we left to make sure this wasn't an R), and the fact that kids quite plainly below the age of 10 were in the audience and watching this movie gnawed at me on the way home afterward. Times and kids have changed, sure: when I was 7 or 8 years old, I remember being taken to see some Ray Harryhausen-animated version of Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger and being scared out of my freakin' mind all the way through. Goat knows what I would have made out of The Dark Knight, especially when Two-Face makes his dramatic appearance (looking an awful lot like Griffin Dunne towards the end of An American Werewolf In London) or when Batman interrogates the mob boss of Gotham City after first breaking his ankles.

These same thoughts came back to mind a few hours later while I was surfing around on the web and came across a page selling all sorts of tie-in merchandise for the movie, including a batch of children's toys. Incredulous, I looked over these poseable Joker action figures, shirts and posters and wondered if we were only a couple of steps away from trying to get these same kids to bug their parents for Saw play sets or Red Dragon action figures.

Then again, I guess we did have Alien trading cards when I was in fifth grade ...

The Dark Knight rating: 4/5