The Dark Knight (2008)

Premise: While Batman (Christian Bale) and Lieutenant Gordon (Gary Oldman) are busy trying to clean up the mob in Gotham, the Joker (Heath Ledger) is slowly accruing more power. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne (Bale) is frustrated to find Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) in so serious a relationship with new DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) now that end of Gotham's need for Batman seems to be in sight.

I was always a Superman kind of girl. I read Spider-Man comic books, I watched Spider-Man, Batman, X-Men, and Superman TV shows, but I was always a Superman kind of girl. I'm sure Dean Cain's adorable dimples on Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman played no small part in my childhood love, but there it was. There's just something about Superman: he's a genuinely nice, decent person, as raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent. He's also tragic figure, the last of his kind, trying to protect the beings on his new home when he could easily rule them, forced to keep his identity a secret for fear of what they might do to him. There's a lot of pain, and he hears all of it, and he tries anyway. It must be lonely.

By contrast, as much as I watched the cartoons and the various incarnations, there was always something that bugged me about the Batman. He was a rich, privileged brat who decided that he alone could be above the law in order to enforce it because he suffered a personal tragedy at a young age. There were never any real consequences for his vigilantism; he never seemed to answer for anything.

Over the years, perhaps largely due to weekly doses of idiocy from Smallville and the growing popularity and quality of comic book adaptations on the big screen, I've become disenchanted by Superman and drawn in by other heroes, super and not. Then Christopher Nolan came along and gave me an origin story that I didn't know that I wanted. Now, it's like he's heard about all my nagging doubts and chosen to address them. What if Batman's vigilantism did have unintended consequences? What if someone did want him to pay for his actions? What if he wasn't the best at what he does? What if he didn't want to be? Most importantly, what if, as I suggested in my initial review, I could get a sequel to outrank the original?

You want to know how Nolan does it? He doesn't put Bale/Batman in the centre of the movie. Bruce Wayne's not the protagonist. Neither is Batman. Although it is an ensemble drama (yeah, that's right), he isn't the standout character. It isn't Ledger/Joker either, posthumous Oscar campaign be damned. It's Eckhart/Dent/Two Face.

Eckhart may have been leading in movies for years now, but this is it. This is the kind of star making performance that should, in an ideal world, net him an Academy Award. This is the kind of perfectly paced, heartbreaking, gut wrenching, white knuckle performance for which we should all be on the look out. It's Dent, and only Dent, that goes through a complete character arc in this movie, and it's Eckhart, and only Eckhart, that could bring him there convincingly. What Eckhart does goes beyond convincing. He reaches Chandler/Taylor levels of character embodiment that you start to feel deep down 'til it makes you shudder. You think you believe in Harvey Dent, Bruce? You don't know the half of it. I've never even met him.

While I believe the attention should be focused on Eckhart, director and co-writer Nolan doesn't skimp in a single area. Suddenly Gotham seems more like a real city, one that you could visit or even live in, than ever before. Thanks to Gyllenhaal, Rachel is suddenly a smart, sassy, sensual lawyer who seems both real and necessary, qualities she lacked in her previous incarnation. Oldman continues to play Gordon as the most regular joe, upstanding cop as only Oldman could, and Michael Caine still has a winning way with a one-liner and an inspirational speech.

Ledger is as terrifying, and as thrilling, as the Joker as you expected him to be. No connections, no motivations, no origin story. The Joker simply appears, a force for chaos that cannot, will not be stopped. Everything about him, the walk, the voice, the smacking lips,* was invented for this exact purpose, and it takes you outside and beyond Ledger. You can no sooner think of any actor in the role than you can entertain a thought about this actor's tragic passing. Those things are outside the movie, and Ledger is so present that he forces you, without you realizing it, to be present as well. So long as the movie runs, there is only this. Even when he's not on screen, his presence lingers over the movie. It's a creepy, crawly feeling that makes you nervous in the dark. He's a Nietzscheian superman, outside and above not only the law but morals and justice as well. With him against Bale's Batman, there is no good vs. evil. Good and evil co-exist, and, perhaps, they must.

Thank goodness for Bale. Though he isn't the protagonist and does have limited screen time, he anchors the movie. It's Batman's actions and, yes, their negative consequences that fuel each plotline, and Bale acts the hell out of each and every one. He's so focused on taking down the rest of the mob that he misses, repeatedly, the growing danger that the Joker represents, and it costs him dearly. He'll finally get the chance, it seems, to put aside the sublimated rage that drove the first movie, only to pick it back up again. But now it's different, and you can feel that thanks to Bale. He thought he understood the consequences of being Batman before. Now he's forced to live them, and it is only through Bale's tightly wound performance that we could feel how a person so beaten down could make the right choice for the right reasons and take on the negative consequences that sometimes accompany those choices. Only through Bale could we, in the midst of all that, find room for hope.

Only with Nolan at the helm, co-writing with his brilliant brother Jonathan, working out the story with Batman Begins co-author David S. Goyer, scored intensely by an unthinkable combination of Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, could a sequel this dark outshine the original. Yes, it's very dark. It's downright bleak. But it is also exactly how it has to be. Nolan executes exactly what he needs to without hesitation or remorse. It's the kind of filmmaking that, despite how dark it is, inspires. A

*There was big debate about what, exactly, was going on there. Was he smacking his lips? Licking his bottom lip? Tonguing his scars? Only subsequent viewings will tell.

Confidential to Sean: You're right. I won't say about what to avoid giving anything away, but that possibility certainly exists.

I know this post is crazy long, and I am just going to take a moment to give props to the crowd in the theatre on Friday night. It was packed in there, and somehow we managed to behave ourselves. Two cellphones went off, but we held it together with barely a murmur. The girl behind me talked non-stop during the previews, going so far as to call Watchmen stupid, but she (mostly) clammed up during the feature presentation. Nolan must be working some serious magic for that to happen. Coincidence or miracle?