The Dark Knight

Last night Annie and I caught the The Dark Knight at the Imax theater near our house (For the record we were not among those crazy people paying $150 for a ticket. We bought ours well in advance at the normal price.) I can't remember the last time I was this excited for a movie. I've been a Batman fan my whole life but was not all that impressed by the original four movies. The first two had their moments, Batman Returns is a good Tim Burton movie, but they completely missed the character. The third, Batman Forever, was alright but forgettable. Don't even start on the putrid, unwatchable Batman and Robin. (It features The Governator as Mr. Freeze who at one point conducts choir practice for his henchmen yelling, "SING LOUDER!" Yes, the movie was that bad.)

Batman and Robin effectively killed the franchise for nearly a decade. There was off and on talk of reviving it but quite frankly the fact that Warner Bros., the same studio that churned out B&R, still held the rights didn't inspire a whole lot of confidence.

That is, until they hired Christopher Nolan. I've been a huge Christoper Nolan fan since Memento came out. It's still one of my favorite movies and is one of the most rewatchable movies ever made. I'm not sure what they saw in him that made them think he was the guy for Batman but were they ever right on the money with their choice.

Nolan's first entry in the series, Batman Begins, was incredible. If you haven't seen it, it's required viewing before you check out The Dark Knight. It goes back to the origins of Batman and treats the character and the story with complete seriousness. It asks the question, what would it be like if someone actually decided to put on a bat suit and fight criminals? The movie is incredible, brilliantly acted and directed. It was the Batman movie that geeks like me had been waiting for. It was way more than any of us had hoped for.

But it doesn't hold a candle to The Dark Knight.

This one takes off from where Begins left off and never looks back. The most talked about aspect of this performance is the much hyped performance of the late Heath Ledger as The Joker and for once the hype is justified. Apart from Daniel Day Lewis, I have never seen an actor so completely disappear into a character. When Ledger was first announced as The Joker, the Internet went abuzz with angry fans and Brokeback Batman jokes. He seemed so wrong for the role. But whatever Christopher Nolan saw that the rest of us missed, he was dead right. It's the best villain performance I've ever seen, including Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter.

Speaking of Hannibal, The Joker has him beat hands down as far as villains go. Hannibal was terrifying but there was also a refined elegance about him. He was a perfect gentleman who also happened to eat people. He was certainly evil and sadistic but not in the way The Joker is in this movie. The Joker has no agenda. He's not after money or power. It's not even correct to say he just wants to kill people. What he wants is to destroy as much as he can. He is an anarchist in the purest sense of the word. He believes in nothing but pain and chaos. And it's terrifying.

A lot is going to be made about the violence in this movie. It's very rough and very shocking. But the amazing thing is that it accomplishes that without being gory or graphic. There's almost no blood in the entire movie but despite that, the violence is more intense than most gore filled movies. Christopher Nolan proves that less is more. In this case almost too much more.

The Joker is the highlight of the movie but it would be a shame for Batman to get lost in the hype. Christian Bale continues to be one of the best actors working today. His performance here is great. The character's transformation through this movie is incredible. There's a scene where he is interrogating The Joker that is just brutal to watch. He's been pushed to his emotional and physical limits by this guy and he completely loses control. But the harder he hits, the more The Joker just laughs and one of the films many philosophical questions is raised: how do you stop a man who thrives on pain and doesn't care if he dies? It's a fascinating question with big time implications for today's war on terror.

The philosophy in the movie is fantastic but never preachy. I don't want to give the impression of this being an Ayn Rand style movie. It's not. But at the same time, the actions and choices of the characters raise big time ethical, philosophical and moral questions. I won't spoil them here but it's a deep film that will leave you thinking.

When I left Batman Begins I couldn't wait to see the sequel. Leaving The Dark Knight I'm almost afraid to. I'd rather have no sequel than a bad sequel. I don't have any idea how you come anywhere close to equaling this, let alone topping it. This is The Empire Strikes Back to Batman Begins' Star Wars. This is The Godfather Part 2. Both of those trilogies (and the Spider-Man series) had disappointing finishes (though I still love Return of the Jedi) and I do not want to see Batman's third entry join that dubious club. Here's hoping Christopher Nolan proves me wrong yet again and makes the third the best one yet.


Side note: The Dark Knight had one of the coolest marketing campaigns of all time. One of the best aspects was the vandalized posters. They released the normal posters and then a few months later put up ones that had been defaced by The Joker. Check out some of the better ones below.