Need I say more about this character? Who doesn’t know that this was the last film for Heath Ledger, and that it may have pushed him so far, he ended up dead in bed? They (the Hollywood “buzz” people) are now talking Academy Award nomination here, and maybe so, how would I know? Once I was able to get over the hype for this performance, and move past a few annoying affectations Ledger brought to the role (such as this lip smacking thing he does), his lines are memorable, and his “Joker” brings a whole new level of chaos to the usual crime fighting tale.
Good luck trying to follow some of this, but basically “The Joker” just wants to mess with everybody, from “The Batman” (Christian Bale), to the District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to the girl caught in between the two (Rachel Dawes, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal) to the new Police Commissioner (Gary Oldham) to even the other bad guys (an ethically diverse crew of mobsters led by Eric Roberts, who turns in an underrated performance).
For a while I had to admire this guy – he or his henchman seem to be everywhere, setting off menacing plot after plot in an elaborate scheme to prove, well let me see, to prove, we are all just as evil. Most of them involve explosives, in case you’re interested.
And if all you care about is the battle and the special effects, you won’t be disappointed, there’s plenty of that, including a great street chase scene featuring “The Batman” on his “batcycle”.
If you care more about the psychological moral tale, you’ll find something here too, for it all eventually comes back to some pretty thin lines between good and evil – in other words, there’s much “gray” here to enjoy. But as for “The Batman” crossing the line over to some other moral plane (this is where the title “The Dark Knight” comes in), I don’t know if I’d go that far, unless eavesdropping on 30 million people is some kind of major offense.
The pretext to yet another “Batman” movie is also pretty clear here by the end, but I’m so beaten down by that now, it wasn’t a big objection. And, normally, I’d tire of characters like “The Joker” stopping the action to carry on a monologue highlighting his madness, but it plays pretty well here, and if that’s all it takes to get the dead guy an Oscar, I’m on board.
“The Dark Knight” is compelling, but I enjoyed “Batman Begins” for its freshness, something that’s missing here. It could be I found things in this film got too complicated, with too many characters and too many problems running around. Overall though, a fine summer diversion – I give it a “9.0” on the scale.
