A few summers ago I deemed Batman Begins the greatest comic book/superhero film of all time. Its sequel, The Dark Knight, is just as worthy of the title. Christopher Nolan has taken a worn-out premise and genre and made it fresh, intelligent, and very entertaining.
Nolan’s film is not just about good versus evil or the hero foiling the villain with a lot of action along the way (although it has a lot of action). It’s about the building of characters, characters that feel real. It’s about the choices these characters make and the consequences of those choices. In short, it’s about characters. And those characters are brought to life
wonderfully by the actors. Leading the way is the late Heath Ledger, who is sure to get an Oscar nod for his creepy, intense, and all together brilliant portrayal as the Joker. He was so convincing as the psychopath in face paint that I never for one second saw Ledger up on the screen. And it is not just the creepy face paint, it is his mannerisms, his voice, and the way he encompassed himself into such a unique role. The rest of the cast is also superb, most notably Aaron Eckhart as District Attorney Harvey Dent turned villain known as Two-Face.But the real star here is Nolan, who along with his brother Jonathan, has written a screenplay with morals and themes that run as deep as any movie you are ever going to see. Behind the camera (and he actually directs from behind the camera, not from a monitor nearby), Nolan stages some of the best action sequences ever, and couples them with emotional scenes of dialogue about morals and choices, mainly between Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) and Alfred (Michael Caine). The film is long for an action film (some 142 minutes), but never seems long with its fantastic pacing.
There is a scene in The Dark Knight in which Bruce Wayne is contemplating letting go of his alter ego so the Joker will stop hurting innocent people to get to Batman. He turns as always to his mentor and Butler, Alfred, for counsel. Wayne asks, “People are dying. What would you have me do?” For which Alfred replies, “Endure.” Well, thanks to Christopher Nolan, the Batman franchise will have no problem doing just that.The Dark Knight comes to a theater near you July 18.
If you liked this, here are some other films by Christopher Nolan:
Following(1998), Memento(2000), Insomnia(2002), Batman Begins(2005), The Prestige(2006).
The Dark Knight official Website
The Dark Knight on IMDB
