Broken Frontier

After months of pre-release buzz, Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated sequel to 2005’s Batman Begins is upon us. Rest assured, it lives up to the hype. The Dark Knight is not only the best film to hit theaters this summer, but it’s also among the best comic book adaptations of all time and is easily the most well-crafted action film in years.

However, to categorize The Dark Knight as a mere action film does not do it justice. Picking up where Begins left off, The Dark Knight reintroduces us to conflicted billionaire playboy/winged avenger Bruce Wayne/Batman (Christian Bale), who must contend with Gotham City’s criminal underworld, newly energized thanks to the rise of the mysterious Joker (the late Heath Ledger).

While “white knight” district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) is  helping fight Gotham’s escalating criminal threat in the courtroom, he’s also moving in on assistant district attorney Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal stepping in for Katie Holmes), Wayne’s old squeeze and last hope for a normal life. The Joker jeopardizes that normalcy when he begins to tear Gotham apart at the seams with his own brand of calculated mischief.

There is action to be sure, from car chases to rooftop slugfests, but the film’s strength is in its scope. The story, which Nolan co-wrote with his brother Jonathan and screenwriter David Goyer, never settles on any one genre. The Dark Knight succeeds as a gripping crime drama—rivaling even the work of Martin Scorcese—and layers on the type of psychological thrills that would make David Fincher blush. It borrows from the best pieces of Batman’s comic book mythology—taking particular character cues from Alan Moore’s Joker-centric tale, Batman: The Killing Joke—and creates something wholly unique for the cinema. Batman has never been brought to life, in any medium, quite like this.

And Bale brings to Batman a great deal of tortured humanity, one of the most appealing aspects of the character. Sure, he gets some nifty gadgets (such as the unbelievably cool Batpod) courtesy of Wayne Enterprises CEO Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), but underneath the black body armor lies a wounded psyche that continues to question Batman’s need to exist. He clearly wants to hang up the cape and cowl and let Dent be Gotham's symbol of hope, but the city needs its Caped Crusader now more than ever.

But a hero is only as good as his nemesis, and Ledger’s Joker easily ranks among the greatest screen villains of all time. While Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman was an over-the-top goofball, Ledger’s take on the character is downright terrifying. As stalwart butler Alfred (Michael Caine) explains to our hero, “Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

That about sums up the Joker. His face, scarred into a permanent smile, is smeared with white grease paint while his stringy green-tinged hair hangs over his shadowy eyes, which tend to dart back and forth inside his skull as he licks his lips with malevolent glee. There is no humor to be found in this incarnation of the character. Instead, there’s an unpredictable level of sadism behind the Joker’s grin, which Ledger conveys brilliantly. The Clown Prince of Crime keeps the tension mounting throughout the film, continuing to raise the stakes as he makes Gotham his own personal, hellish playground.

And there’s not a weak link to be found in the entire cast. Gary Oldman is given far more to do this time around as Lieutenant Jim Gordon, as are Caine’s Alfred and Freeman’s Fox. In Begins, Holmes seemed fairly bored in the role of Rachel Dawes and, thankfully, Gyllenhaal did not study her predecessor’s sleepwalking performance to prepare for this film. Without giving anything away, Eckhart is a pitch perfect Dent, and Nolan handles the character’s transformation wonderfully.

Some may complain that The Dark Knight is too long for its own good, but none of the film’s 152 minutes are wasted. It’s an epic without the bloat, and is one of the few blockbuster films to not only meet filmgoers’ expectations but surpass them completely. The Dark Knight is a haunting masterpiece that audiences won’t soon forget.