JimK:  Before we begin, as you may have been able to discern from the pre-review reaction late last night, we fricking loved The Dark Knight.  There will be fanboy gushing all throughout this review, so be warned.  Also, be warned that some plot details will be spoiled.  SPOILER ALERT!  I will be spoiling a few things, but I will stay away from laying out the story chapter and verse for you.  I will clearly mark the spoilers so you can skip them. SPOILER ALERT!

Also, DonnaK will not be joining me for this one.  I usually carry half of the discussion, or stay fairly quiet after a movie while she tells me how she felt and then I react to that.  This time she couldn’t shut me up.  I think we talked about it for an hour and a half straight and she said maybe ten words.   Last night, she suggested that maybe this would end up a solo review, and after she read what I had, all she said was “I couldn’t add anything to his.  You said everything I would say and I agree with everything you wrote.”  So…here’s my blabberful fanboy gushfest of a review.

As usual, a brief summary.  We pick up somewhere after the end of Batman Begins.  Gotham is on the cusp of something big.  Something ugly.  There’s a new district attorney in town, and Harvey Dent is looking to shut down Gotham’s last remaining gangsters.  James Gordon is heading the Major Crimes Unit with the same goal.  Batman has been hitting the crooks hard from his angle, and the only ones left are a loosely-affiliated gang of Italian mob guys, Russian mafia and drug guys who all use the same money-launderer.

Along comes the Joker.  He’s been hitting the mob guys in various heists, including the one that opens the film, but it’s all sort of petty stuff.  He has bigger dreams.  He interrupts a meeting to make the mob guys an offer: half their ready cash for the death of the Batman.  Of course they’re not going to do that…until, well, they need to.  As Dent later puts it, the mad dog is let off his leash.  The Joker sets in motion a plan to destroy Dent, Gordon, Batman and ultimately the will and soul of Gotham itself.  Madness - and chaos - ensue.

There’s no point in saying another word until we talk about Heath Ledger.  I simply wouldn’t not say this just because he’s dead.  I say the following because it is true: Heath Ledger deserves an Academy Award for Best Actor.  He’s the star of this thing.  Since I’m sure the rules of the WGA say Bale is the main caracter and thus the star, Heath should be a lock for Best Supporting.  Everything about this performance was perfect.  The look: Heath designed the damn makeup himself.  The fact that it was cheap crap that came off was perfect.  The way he hunched, both as a physical sign of not being a macho, strong-bodied guy and as a way to look predatory.  The way his tongue was constantly playing with the scars, both because that’s what you do when your mouth has a wound, and because it looks vaguely like a snake.  Instant association with evil.  I think that Heath even imagined that scars like that might leave flesh hanging inside the mouth, so The Joker was always sucking in as though his mouth was always full of drool.  Most actors (and directors) would have shown you the drool, but I think it was just another layer that Heath imagined for himself and put into the performance.  The way he walked…it was like The Joker had other injuries that we didn’t see or get told about, some leg or hip thing.  One imagines that however the scars were created, that’s not the first or last time The Joker was hurt. 

His voice was sort of a big deal…it was silly and a bit childlike.  This was to make you uncomfortable hearing that voice on an adult, and at the same time it was non-threatening, more reinforcement of the fact that the threat he represents isn’t like Batman, it’s not physical.  He’s the mirror opposite of Batman’s overly macho, intimidating growl.  Heath spoke the Joker’s words in a strangley-paced cadence, just off normal.  Pauses, lengthening of syllables, emphasizing odd words.  Nothing too obvious, though.  It wasn’t hokey like some actors would have done, or to be perfectly frank like Jack Nicholson did.  Heath did not play this for a big sense of granduer or arrogance or comedy.  This character was a complex mix of dozens of layers of little things that added up to a massive, in-your-face character that simply consumed the scene everytime you saw him.  While the voice was an integral part of the character, you had to fear him not for his voice, not for his look, but for the things he said and the actions he took.  Yes, the voice was creepy but it wasn’t the reason you feared him.  Yes the makeup was creepy but again, not the reason.  You feared him because of what he was.  The Joker was a force of nature, and Heath Ledger matched the character moment for moment for the entire film.  He never let up, he never wavered, he never made it seem silly or comic book-ish.  He treated it seriously, and he crafted as fine a character out of The Joker as you will ever see in a movie.  He broght the Nolan brothers’ screenplay to life.  The fact that he died soon after finishing this role should not even be considered when discussing an award for him.  He earned it.  He deserves an Oscar.  When he doesn’t get it due to some bias against “comic book” movies (and the backlash against the oscar talk that has already begun), it will only re-affirm how out of touch the “Academy” has been for so long.

Other performances of note: Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent.  How tough is it for an actor to seem honest and earnest in a movie like this?  Playing good is hard.  Villians are more accessible in many ways.  It’s hard to just be genuine and earnest when you know that you are, in effect, lying when you act.  Eckhart pulled it off.  It makes his transition to Two-Face so much more solid and believable.  You learn right away he’s a man of his word with a rock-solid sense of right and wrong.  He may bend the law, but even then it’s done from a moral center if not a legal one.  This means that later, when Two-Face flips a coin you believe he’ll roll with the outcome.

Gary Oldman puts in a solid turn as Gordon…nothing flashy, nothing that steals a scene, just a good, solid performance that is 100% believable.  Morgan Freeman is his usual, solidly-rooted man-you-trust self.  Bale is great as Bruce Wayne, but a bit flat as Batman.  I think honestly that the suit plus the mask plus the eyeblack means he can’t act at all with any expressions whatsoever.  The eyeblack under the mask removes even the ability to use his eyes.  Making him do the voice even stronger this time meant that it kind of flattened out into a Charles Bronson/Clint Eastwood growl, only with no emotion in it.  I don’t blame Bale, and I get that Chris Nolan wanted a strong contrast to Ledger’s Joker voice.  I’m not sure it needed to be so pronounced though.  Maybe using an actual vocoder/pitch changer built into the suit would have been better.  Or hokey.  I don’t know if that problem can be solved.  On the other hand, Batman (the Year One/Dark Knight verion) probably shouldn’t be that emotional.  His actions tell you what you need to know.  At least Bale (and Bats)  could turn his head this time.

That brings me to my one complaint with this film; Maggie Gyllenhaal.  I did not like her at all as Rachel Dawes.  She was entirely the wrong actress to play this part.  From her hangdog, unhappy-looking face to her frumpiness to her somewhat grating voice, she did NOT embody the woman that would captivate both Harvey Dent and Bruce Waye.  Sorry, but it’s true.  Gyllenhaal at best a six or a seven with outstanding hair and makeup, and Rachel should be a ten.  I’m not saying that all women have to be super hot to be desirable.  I’m saying that Bruce Wayne can have the smartest, funniest, coolest AND hottest woman on the planet.  He can have hot babes all day, but the one that he wants to spend his life with should be a ten in every department.  Rachel should be brilliant, funny, witty, a great kisser, a fantastic cook, awesome in bed and a knockout.  I never once bought Gyllenhaal as Rachel.  I wasn’t alone.  When…

PLOT SPOILER!
—When she dies, the theater erupted in applause and cheers.  She annoyed everyone, and I think in part it was Maggie that caused that reaction.  I mean, everyone was pretty sick of her two-timing (emotionally) Dent and Wayne, but I think that another actress (Not the Scientology-era Holmes) wouldn’t have gotten that reaction.—
SPOILER ENDED

Gyllenhaal’s acting was outstanding.  She’s a very talented, capable actress who nailed the performance aspect of her role.  I just don’t see her as the right woman to play soulmate to these two men.  DonnaK says I want her to be Kate Beckinsale and you know what?  I do.

So the action.  This movie didn’t actually have a second act.  It opens with some fairly Heat-like, taut action as a crew is robbing a mob bank.  The Joker is behind it of course, and kills everyone he hires before driving away with the money in a big yellow school bus.  And then the movie picks up.  And up.  And up.  And everytime you think that now, finally they will slow it down and do that whole expository second act thing, another thing happens and the tension is ratcheted up a notch.  And then the crank is turned again and again until the final moment when only as Gordon utters the last words of the film do you get a chance to take a breath.

Normally that kind of pacing would drive a room crazy, especially in a two hour and thirty-two minute film.  I was in a room full of fanboys, college idiots, drunken frat morons, kids, older fans…it was a big mix, and everyone was absolutely riveted.  Even the drunk dicks, who occasionally talked and said stupid shit, were mostly quiet and riveted by the movie.  I don’t think anyone said a word, rustled a bag or even considered eating popcorn for the last 45 minutes.  It’s impressive as hell to grab ahold of a crowd’s attention and hold it for that long without some space to breathe.  Don’t breathe during The Dark Knight.  Don’t worry, you won’t even notice you’ve stopped breathing.  You can live on the tension alone for a couple of hours.

Was this a visual feast of kick-assery?  Yes.  But it was all practical.  What I mean is the effects were grounded in a reality.  Sure, you expect that after Batman Begins, but this movie extends and expands that philosophy.  Even Wayne’s advanced technology makes sense.  It’s an extrapolation of things we have now, things we understand.  As for the physicality?  It’s perfect.  It’s all grounded in real fighting, real weaponry, real physics.  It’s just all a little over the top, but in exactly the way that you want a Batman movie to be.  Nolan was careful to give everything a base, a grounding point from which it is remarkably easy to suspend disbelief and buy everything you see.  He really understands Batman.  Batman is just a guy in a suit with stuff to help him kick ass.  You could be Batman.  I could be Batman.  That’s one of the reason this character has endured and is so loved.  And it plays a small part in the film as well.  Gotham has a few fake Batmen running around.

PLOT SPOILER!  Stop reading if you don’t want to know the end.
—OK, I don’t know if Dent is dead.  They never actually checked his pulse in front of us, the viewers.  He could be alive and locked away in Arkham.  The memorial was the same thing they did for Gordon and we all know how that turned out.  I can see a third movie opening with Two-face’s escape from Arkham, and Gordon faced with the challenge of acting like he’s hunting Batman, actually hunting Dent and at the same time helping Batman.  This could make Gordon the centerpiece of a third film, the way The Joker was for this one.  Gordon is faced with a three-way loser’s dilemma; If he appears to do nothing and be ineffectual, he loses his job and Gotham loses.  If he catches Batman, Gotham loses.  If he catches Dent on the record, everyone finds out about Dent’s fall from grace and the lie to bury it, and Gotham loses.  It could work, and work well.—
SPOILER ENDED

Things I loved that I haven’t mentioned yet:

- Nolan’s nods to other films.  The French Connection car chase homage under the El.  The Joker telling Batman “You complete me.”  Big laugh on that one in the theater.  SPOILER! - The way Harvey said “I’m the Batman” at his press conference - END SPOILER
- The constant reminders of duality.  Everyone and everything has a foil, a mirror image, an opposite.  Each major character has an internal struggle between two opposites.  Some are obvious.  Bruce & Batman.  Rachel’s playing both men.  Dent as Two-Face.  Some are less obvious, like The Joker’s internal struggle.  It appears that he is what he says he is, an agent of chaos.  He tells Dent that he’s not a schemer, he’s a do-er.  Other people plan, he just does things.  His struggle is between his love of chaos and his need to scheme and plan.  Everything he does is planned, but it’s planned with the goal of introducing chaos in everyone else.  He wants to see it all burn.  He wants to see what people will do when they are pushed.  He wants to break good men like Gordon, Dent and Batman.  More than that he wants to demoralize them first.  All of that takes careful planning.  He also appears suicidal, but that’s not it at all.  At the same time he wants to be insane and let go and truly be chaos.  He’s willing to die to accomplish his goal, so at times he appears suicidal, but he isn’t.  It’s planned in order to corrupt someone, and ultimately all of Gotham.  Duality.  At all times, in all things, this movie is operating on two levels.  sometimes four or six, but always multiples of two.
- The terrorism angle.  The Joker is a terrorist, plain and simple.  The movie doesn’t try to equivocate.  He’s not “as bad as” anyone else, he’s the worse thing in the film.  Ultimately the message is that no matter the cost, terrorism must be resisted, but be prepared to pay a price for doing that.  In this case the price is Rachel Dawes, the lives of a number of innocent Gothamites and Harvey Dent’s soul. 
- The multiple stories about how The Joker got the scars.  We never find out the truth and I don’t want to know.  It’s better that we never have our time wasted with a bunch of Joker backstory.  He is what he is and he must be dealt with.
- Anthony Michael Hall for the eleven seconds he’s on screen.
- The fact that Batman shoulder-checked one dog, threw another one over the edge of the construction site and I think (it was dark & blurry) he punched a third one.  Of course he did!  Batman only has one rule, and it’s not that vicious attack dogs should be loved to death.  Punch those bastards.  Screw PETA.
- The opening music.  I don’t know if it was a song or part of the composed score, but it would have been remarkably easy to fill that opening helicopter shot with orchestra music.  Especially since The Dark Knight is packed to the gills with Hans Zimmer’s score.  Instead it was a modern electronic piece, and I think it set the tone for the movie.  This is not your father’s Batman, or even superhero movie.  The Joker brings a new kind of flavor to the party, and I think the opening scene establishes that nicely.

I don’t know how exactly to say this, so I’m just gonna say it.  Marvel just got their ass whupped.  I don’t think there has ever been a “comic book” movie this good.  I know that no one has ever put this much craft into any performance before.  Dead or alive, Heath Ledger raised the bar for everyone who will ever don a suit, wig or makeup in service to a superhero story.  I give this movie ten thousand stars out of five.  A big five stars with the most aggressive recommendation to see it that I can muster.  DonnaK says she also gives it five stars and a strong recommendation to see it immediately, it’s the best movie of the summer.  So go!  Get up and see it as soon as you can possibly do it, in a big theater.  In fact you shouldn’t even still be reading this.  Go, right now, and find a screening.  GO!