"The Dark Knight" - spoiler movie review

This is definitely not your parents' Batman.

The husband and I had planned to see "The Dark Knight" opening weekend, either on Saturday or Sunday. Because of a friend's suggestion, we ended up deciding Thursday afternoon that we'd go to a midnight screening that night. It had already been a long day (started at 5am that morning), and even though I'd had about a 10 minute nap at 10:30pm, I was still very tired. But staying awake during the course of this movie was no problem at all because it was riveting.

I found this movie to be absolutely amazing. It also had a lot of twists and turns that I found myself having to make my way through. There were terrific performances by Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhall and, of course, Christian Bale, but the spotlight appropriately shown brightest on Heath Ledger. He was definitely a far cry from Cesar Romero's Joker of the television series, but even as iconic as Jack Nicholson's Joker had become, Ledger's performance blows him away. The television series was obviously done with camp, and even though the more recent movie series was done more as a regular drama, the new incarnation with Christian Bale is different yet, as we saw in "Batman Begins". But nothing, nothing in the live-action film or television versions of the Batman story comes close to preparing you for the depth and darkness portrayed in "The Dark Knight". This is not the menace and danger of a terminator or Darth Vader or Borg or a cylon. As much as I love the fantastical, the terror in this film comes from an ordinary human being - insane and psychopathic enough to be able to inflict death and the worse harm and pain to another human, but what makes him even more lethal is that he's not insane enough to have lost control. Instead, he still has complete presence of mind to plan and pull off his deadly and horrific schemes.

Heath Ledger does an amazing job with this character, giving him physical ticks and mannerisms, and playing him generally very understated, which to me is more powerful than playing him over the top. It could be attributed to the fact that I don't think I've ever seen him in anything else, but I never for a minute saw anyone but Joker onscreen, whereas I never forgot that the other Joker was being played by Jack Nicholson. Ledger's calm delivery of so much of his performance leaves you feeling the underlying menace he exudes.

I think what really worked for me wasn't just that Ledger turned in a terrific performance, but that he and Bale's Batman were great foils for each other. One of my complaints about the 1989 film has always been that while the film was called "Batman", the only interesting character in the movie was the Joker, and Batman was completely uninteresting compared to him. Nicholson wiped the screen with Michael Keaton. In this film, Bale also turns in a memorable performance, and to me, watching Joker and Batman do their dancet with each other was like watching Clarice and Hannibal in "The Silence of the Lambs". Joker was toying with Batman every bit as much as Hannibal was toying with Clarice, and both Joker and Hannibal have a controlled insanity that really just strips them of any empathy or moral compass while leaving them with their full faculties to indulge their whims with no remorse. This film would have been much weaker had Christian Bale not also been up to the task.

I hadn't really been paying attention, so I was a bit surprised when I discovered that the film was rated PG-13. Looking back at the film, there wasn't a lot of graphic violence - most of it was implied. Sure, there was a lot of action and chases and things being blown up, but that's all par for the course. I don't tend to swear much during films, but it's been a long time since I was swearing this much during the course of the film, either because of plot developments themselves or unexpected actions. No, that's not how I even vaguely thought he'd make the pencil disappear, and no, I wasn't expecting the dead faux Batman to thump against the window. But to me, the most adult aspect of this film is Joker's motive. As explained by Alfred, he's not really driven by a particular desire like revenge or greed or something like that. He just wants to create anarchy for the sake of having anarchy. It's easier to explain someone's bad actions because they were power hungry, or money hungry, or just plain greedy, or desperate, or angry, or out for revenge. But how do you explain someone who hurts people just for fun, just because they can, just to see what it's like?

I also like how Batman is being drawn, similar to how many "superhero" types are being drawn now and quite unlike what it used to be. Superhero movies before just focussed on the superheroes' good deeds, and you only really saw them when they were "at work". But what about when they're not? What about their off hours? They had no identity, no existence, other than as superheroes. That's not as true now. There are aspects of the burden of always saving the world in both the X-Men movies as well as the Fantastic Four movies, and you definitely get that in the current Spiderman movie series as well as the Batman movie series, and you even get that in the current Superman television series "Smallville" as well as the now-off-the-air television series "Buffy and the Vampire Slayer". These are not protectors who have no life outside of their superhero-ness. Instead, they do pay a price for the benefit they provide people. They must sacrifice some part of themselves - time, friends, lovers - in order to save the world because they have to be careful who they trust if their extraordinary abilities need to be kept secret, and they have to be careful about who they get close to because they're potentially putting these loved ones in the line of fire. They have the same problems and concerns and fears and insecurities as everyone else, but they also have to routinely put those aside to save the world from yet another apocalypse.

Bruce Wayne in this film is the reluctant hero, who must battle not just the bad guys but also ordinary people who are impersonating him, who don't understand what it takes to be him, that it's not just a suit, and ultimately, these copycats make it worse for him. He also has to be separated from the one that he loves, and except for a few confidantes, he must maintain the dual identity. I loved watching his struggle and then watching him come out the other side, ready and able to do and take what he needs to in order to protect Gotham. They couldn't let the Joker win by being seen as succesfully tearing down the idealist Harvey Dent, so instead, Batman agrees to become the outlaw.

There's going to be a lot of attention focused on Heath Ledger, both because of his powerhouse performance and because of his tragic death, but by no means should any of the other performances be overlooked. The movie works as well as it does because it's a great ensemble effort - each one adding a layer and texture to the work as a whole.

Unfortunately for the franchise, I'm not sure they can ever recast Joker. He's a great, complicated character - but I would think it would be impossible for another actor to step in. Oh, sure, they've re-done Batman with multiple different actors, and they even got someone new to play Rachel this time around. But Rachel in "Batman Begins" doesn't make anywhere near the impact that Joker does in this film. I don't think you could have another actor reinterpret the character at this point and have that be accepted. But I'm also not sure you can find an actor who would basically be willing to try to imitate Ledger in another film.

Would I recommend this movie? Yes, with precautions. Some people can't handle films that are this dark, films that delve this deeply into the human psyche, one that is twisted and warped. Those people should definitely not see this movie. But if that's not a concern, then this is definitely a movie not to be missed. And with the ending of this film, I'm excited to see what else will be in store. I'm still going to nominate Anne Hathaway as Catwoman - I think she would be terrific.