Dark Knight proves itself after Ledger's death

The Dark Knight passed into film lore the moment Heath Ledger died. We started a posthumous worship of the actor almost immediately, which is a crass and offensive thing Americans do with dearly departed stars nowadays. Dead or not, though, his performance is legendary, the role we’ll measure all other villains by for decades to come — Darth Vader, Bill the Butcher, The Joker.

But don’t judge the movie on Ledger alone; he’s one cog in a very large and very well-lubricated machine that is The Dark Knight, one of this year’s most densely complex films, as much an epic tragedy as it is a comic-book thrill ride. It's also permeated with a sadness that was unexpected, yet imperative to the scope of the story. All of it, though, is masterful filmmaking, the stuff we’ve come to expect from Christopher Nolan.

We begin with Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Gotham’s new district attorney, a bright ray of hope cresting over the city’s madness. In one day alone Dent, square jaw and all, arrests the mob — all of them. So many that the courtroom arraignment is standing-room only, filled with 500 buttonmen, Mafia lieutenants and all the dons in their expensive suits. While Dent mops up in court, Batman stalks the night and cleans up what the police and district attorney can’t touch. Dent and Batman: the White Knight and the Dark Knight.

Batman and billionaire Bruce Wayne are still played by Christian Bale, whose talents seem limitless. Bale seems more athletic here, which may be in part to a new Batman suit that looks like a super-soldier outfit with a cape and ears. Apparently the suit is more flexible, which allows faster hand-to-hand combat, building extractions, cape soaring and gadget deployment. Bruce is more skeptical of authority inside this Batman, but he sees Dent, who is destined to become the bitter Two-Face, as the logical and legal replacement to his caped crusader. At one point he has Alfred, his wise butler (played with subtle perfection by Michael Caine), draw up retirement papers.

With the pressure on the mob, and Dent beaming from City Hall, the city seems to be heading toward better times, and director Nolan shows us as much with daylight scenes and afternoon camera passes of Gotham’s landmarks; for a while the darkness seems to subside.

Enter the Joker, a nutjob with endless resources and invention. With a maniacal sneer and high-pitched giggle, he’s introduced with a magic trick so audacious it’s as mad as he is. Later when he’s arrested, the cops pull dozens of knives from his pockets while he mocks them with fake applause. In a single day, the Joker has stolen all the mobs’ money, so much that the bills stack up into a fort bigger than most single-family homes. The Joker’s proposition to the mob: Let him eliminate Batman and Dent with their blessing and half their money.

Of course, it all gets much more complex, too much to catalog here, but rest assured that every character — including Bruce Wayne’s ex, Rachel (now played by Maggie Gyllenhaal); Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldman); and engineer Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) — figures into it. I wouldn’t call the film a mystery, but it uses all these characters to reveal itself to us in intelligent ways and never all at once. Bruce Wayne’s submersion into the darker edges of Batman’s soul are intricate developments that expand as the Joker takes hold. The film never handles it in broad, obvious scenes. They unfold around us, involving us in the processes of Batman’s sacrifices, of Dent’s fateful redemption, of Joker’s elaborate abduction of the hero’s principles. And not everything is solved with a fistfight; some of it is a moral and philosophical battle, like when Joker rigs two boats to explode but gives the passengers the detonators.

Above presenting an action story, a thriller, a suspense and romance (Bruce is still in love with Rachel), Dark Knight also ponders that good-versus-evil dilemma like no other movie has ever attempted. The mythology of the superhero is turned into a bona fide ethos, an authentic philosophy with real values and moral boundaries. It suggests that maybe Batman is not the hero the city needs or wants, and give him a long enough story arc and he’ll be as bad as the Joker. It also plays with the theme of duality, which is personified completely in Two-Face’s grotesque transformation. It’s complicated material and it’s no walk in the park to be sure. It provides an interesting dynamic with the film’s action, which is intense.

There are numerous chases, brawls and show-stopping gunfights, all of them with surprise conclusions and some interesting ethical dilemmas: Can Batman save two people at once? Will a normal person kill to save his own life? Will a good man go bad for the wrong reasons? For once, here’s a movie where the action punctuates the movie’s themes. The action also introduces us to the new Batman vehicle, the Batpod, which is an ejected piece of the Batmobile. It’s essentially a motorcycle with fat racing tires that Batman cruises around town on, cape flapping in the wind, trying to stop each new Joker disaster. Which leads us to …

The Joker. He’s presented as a lovable loon, but also deadly. In one scene he breaks a pool cue in half and tells three men to fight to the death to fill a slot on his team; in another he phones a detonator surgically implanted in a man’s stomach. Ledger avoided Jack Nicholson’s Joker and went with a more isolated, more psychologically deranged character. His origins are never shown — though he tells his victims a variety of stories about his facial scars — yet he’s given an almost poetic edge that seems to come from deep-seated torment. Watch how he hangs his head outside the window of a car as it swerves through Gotham, listen to his whimsical dialogue filled with nuance and rage, witness his destruction of a hospital while dressed in drag … it’s all kind of silly and goofy, but chilling to a level that’s almost uncomfortable.

And because Nolan has developed his characters so expertly, by the time Batman and Joker meet in an interrogation room it's as if two giants were clashing on the screen, like when Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, after all they'd been through in their careers, finally met for coffee in Heat. Batman seethes and growls from behind his suit, Joker smirks and rubs his fingers through his limp, lifeless hair. It's Clash of the Titans, in comic form.

Will Ledger live up to your expectations? That depends, mainly because fans are putting too much pressure on the deceased actor. He’s practically already won an Academy Award from the movie previews alone. I think he’ll be universally cheered, and only partly because he’s passed on, mostly, though, because he is truly terrifying as Batman’s famous nemesis.

Really, though, you can’t begin to understand The Dark Knight by looking at the Joker alone. It’s Joker, it’s Batman, it’s Bruce Wayne and it’s Harvey Dent, who’s Two-Face looks like one of those medical cross sections from encyclopedias. It’s also a pivotal performance by Tiny Lister, who plays a prisoner who makes a decision that shows the renewed strength of Gotham, even as Batman and Dent descend into their fates. The sum of these characters has allowed The Dark Knight to transcend from comic-book movie to dramatic art. Important, character-rich art born from the pulp of DC Comics.

This is a powerful film, one of the best this year. Nolan (The Prestige, Memento) has taken what he did in Batman Begins and filleted it wide open to reveal the darker abysses of Batman’s soul. It’s a natural progression, and it only makes me want to cheer louder for the third and final picture.

***This review originally ran in the West Valley View July 18, 2008.***