LOS ANGELES—THIS IS WHAT it looks like when your world burns. The familiar shapes of your beloved city are adorned with ribbons of flame. Your people are fleeing in fear. Looming above it all is a smile, shattered and sinister, a madman having fun.
It is the face of the Joker, in an unrecognizable and unforgettable performance by the late Heath Ledger. Amid the snowflakes of fire and smashed cars, it is his image that permeates Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight,” a muscular, cerebral and, yes, superior sequel to 2005’s “Batman Begins.”
That’s because in all of its aspects dim and light, “The Dark Knight” represents an unfettered surge of all that effectively began in the first movie: bigger explosions, a rising list of casualties and a story that is impressively complex.
Taking up almost immediately after the events of “Begins,” the movie begins with Gotham City in the grip of a war between its criminals and Batman (Christian Bale) in the streets. In the courts, the war is fought by popular new District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), with dedicated Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) working the fine line between them. But the maniacal criminal mastermind called The Joker has a plan—or two or three—to change all that. Meanwhile, Bale’s Bruce Wayne struggles to regain the affections of Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who is working for and dating Dent.
The film is served well by Bale’s precise acting on all fronts: the growling Batman confronts his similarities and differences with the Joker, even as the restrained Bruce Wayne comes to terms with what he is and is not when it comes to Dawes, given emotional heft by Gyllenhaal. Eckhart employs a riveting slow burn in his own tragic transformation. The remarkable Oldman provides “Knight” with emotional heft as his lived-in but unbroken Gordon discovers how fragile his world is in the hands of a genius with nothing to lose.
Most mesmerizing is Ledger’s Joker, an almost reptilian creature of twitches and ticks, whose very voice drips with distaste, whose slouch belies his purpose, whose spilled mascara unmasks his malice. Nolan turns the Joker into a crackpot cipher; he is fascinating because he frightens us so, electrifying every scene he is in, absolutely blowing Jack Nicholson’s Joker from Tim Burton’s “Batman” out of the Gotham water.
Clocking in at an imposing 2:32, “Knight” is a complex brew of action and drama, unique because of how committed the action is, and how dedicated the drama is, but in alternating scenes. What Nolan has done, in uncanny synch with his movie’s plot, is to escalate the scale of everything in “Knight.” The most obvious beneficiaries are the action scenes. From jaw-dropping high-altitude high jinks to increasingly elaborate chases, “Knight” plays a game of one-upmanship with itself, finally achieving its pinnacle with a sequence involving Batman and a tractor-trailer, with the scenes shot in IMAX just jumping out and grabbing the audience, literally filling the screen with fire and metal fragments.
While Nolan acknowledges being influenced by Michael Mann’s artful heist flick “Heat” (with the evidence clear in the chase scenes), the movie that “Knight” most resembles is Nolan’s “The Prestige.” This is a movie that keeps coming at you with a plot twist for a concealed weapon. With Nolan playing the figurative Riddler, everything becomes a puzzle. Just when you think it couldn’t get any bleaker, “Knight” uncorks one kidney punch after another, laying down the moviegoer with a completely unforeseen haymaker. “Knight” simply goes place you just don’t expect it to. By movie’s end, it is clear the status quo in Gotham City has been broken for good.
Getting there, “Knight” loudly racks up a shocking body count in a kinetic fashion and a breathless rhythm, driving Batman and the audience forward to its complicated denouement. Nolan adroitly approaches “Knight” as an urban epic about two men struggling mightily to reshape Gotham in their image and crafts his tale with an unflinching violence that is both bracing and yet never gratuitous. It grimly sets about showing what it takes to be the man that a city needs. In that sense, “Knight” is the polar opposite to the tongue-in-cheek “Iron Man.”
What Christopher Nolan has done is to take Batman very seriously, and in “The Dark Knight,” he brings the hero full circle in a sprawling, breathtaking action masterpiece. Reinforced by excellent performances all around and propelled by its director’s full-bodied vision, “The Dark Knight” is a triumphant piece of filmmaking that reminds us that no good deed goes unpunished, but asks us if we are truly willing to pay the price.
Warner Bros.’ “The Dark Knight” is rated PG-13 and opens in Metro Manila theaters on July 17.
