The Dark Knight, the most anticipated picture of the year for myself and innumerable others, has finally arrived following a trail of hype that would crush almost any film. But miraculously, just as Moses wielded his stone tablets, Christopher Nolan has handed us a true gift from the cinematic gods. His second Batman is so visceral, so propulsive, so maddeningly perfect in its execution that it should come with a warning; you do not simply watch The Dark Knight, you surrender your pulse to Christopher Nolan. And even if an intended triptych has been tragically cut short (as Mel Brooks might contend those aforementioned commandments were) what remains is wholly qualified to stand on its own not as a great Batman film, not as a great superhero film, and not as a great action film, but as one of the most distiguished pieces of filmmaking of its generation.
This decade, more so than any other, has seen comic-to-film adaptations mature from vacuous thrills to serious art. Sam Raimi gave them their candy colored coming-of-age angst with his Spider-Man series; Jon Favreau gave them their sociopolitical meta-narrative with his first Iron Man; and Bryan Singer has alternately given them their conflicts of appearance/intention and assimilation/assertion (X-men, X2) and their visual and tonal poetry (Superman Returns). But by taking one of the most psychologically rich and practically feasible comic book heroes and stripping him of all remaining contrivance and camp, Nolan has arguably bested them all by instilling his Gotham -- and its inhabitants -- with a gritty realism that absolutely demands as much emotional and technical veracity as an escapist action-adventure will allow.
Perhaps Nolan's greatest asset as a filmmaker is his unwavering dedication to making his characters' actions and emotions utterly believable within the constricts of his chosen narrative. One needn't look any farther than Nolan's breakthrough sophomore film, Memento, to see that what sets him apart from almost every other filmmaker working today is his complete command of both the internal and external machinations of his characters. Rarely, if ever, do you see a writer-director working in Nolan's genres with such an assured and astute grasp on human emotion and interaction. His application of binary opposition in both plot and theme is unmatched in today's cinema. There is a constant tug of war in Nolan's films, a philosophical debate between chance and fate, between reason and impulse, between light and dark, etc. Any screenwriter can set up archetypes and let them stand in contrast to one another, but the beauty of a Nolan script is that the true conflict lies inside the characters. Nolan understands that the line between friends and enemies is moveable, based more on circumstance than on the people themselves.
And what people they are. Christian Bale's Batman has become beautifully economic in both word and action. Gary Oldman's Lieutenant Gordon is an even stronger edifice of morality and decency. Maggie Gyllenhaal's Rachel Dawes is a noteworthy trade-up from the first film, with composure, confidence, and sexuality in equal measure. Michael Caine's Alfred is humane, silently compassionate, and so much more than the stuffy butler to which he is all too often reduced.
But Heath Ledger's Joker.
I'm really not sure what I can add to the innumerable accolades already heaped upon this utterly unnerving, raw, feral, fearless, unshakeable performance. Nothing is done out of vanity, nothing for cheap thrills. True, I feel the talk of Oscar gold is both premature and hyperbolic, but I would be surprised to not see Ledger on the list of nominees.
The Dark Knight is that rare genre film that changes the vocabulary of its genre -- no small feat given the leaps and bounds comic book films have already taken over the past few years. That The Godfather, Heat, A Clockwork Orange, and Unforgiven have all been cited as influences on the film is no surprise; what all of these exceptional pictures share in common with one another is an intellectual maturity that nonetheless refuses to compromise entertainment for intelligence.
Whether or not the few muffled criticisms that the film is too long, too packed with characters and information, too frenetic, or too climactic are valid is up to the viewer to decide on an individual basis. While I will agree that the film is denser and more earnest than its peers, I refuse to accept that this is to its detriment. Nolan has taken a lofty gamble, and we have all walked away from the table with more chips than we can carry.