The Dark Knight
August 1, 2008
It's only slightly morbid to suggest that the overwhelming success of this blockbuster, Christopher Nolan's vastly improved saga of Bruce Wayne and his struggle as Gotham's conflicted vigilante Batman, is due to the curiosity of Heath Ledger's final performance as the terrorist Joker, a performance so disturbing, we've heard, that the talented actor was put on heavy medication that ultimately killed him. It's probably true, given the difference between the opening weekends of “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight”, but only a cynic would hold such a thing over the quality of a film, and given that Nolan's dark vision, pitting Batman (Christian Bale) against the maniacal Joker, with white knight D.A. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and police chief Gordon (Gary Oldman) caught in the middle, delves into themes of hero worship, expectations, terrorism, hedonism, and the obvious, what it means to be good or evil, we've got the very basics for comic-book psych 101. Nolan deserves much of the credit, it can't be easy continually reinventing a franchise that dates 60 years, but there's no mistaking that without the Ledger performance, both frighteningly funny and disturbingly demented, anchoring a film that so studiously suggests the thin line between pure good and evil, the film might just be another well constructed comic-book yarn. With the performance, the feather in the cap of a too short career, it's something special altogether, and one of the best movies of the year.
By Adam Suraf