Director: Christopher Nolan   
Cast: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal   
Running Time: 153 minutes   
Distributor: Warner Bros.   
Release Date: July 17   
Rating: PG

Simply put, The Dark Knight is one of the greatest movies ever made, a black diamond cut with infinite precision and polished to blindingly sparkly perfection. Marvel had its fun this summer with Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, but DC’s The Dark Knight is in an entirely different realm. It’s mythic. It’s epic. It’s archetypal. It’s The Godfather of superhero movies.

While so many filmmakers stumble over themselves trying to make movies that they think (or hope) audiences will like, The Dark Knight’s superlative director, Christopher Nolan, has obviously told the story that he wants to tell.

To judge it based on conventional wisdom, the film would be considered too long (at two-and-a-half hours), too dense (giving equal weight to three main characters), and too dark (after all, it’s from the same guy who gave us Memento). But as in most instances when conventional wisdom is applied to a great work of art, the criticisms don’t hold; in fact, they streak away like raindrops on the Batmobile’s windshield.

The Dark Knight is the rarest of treasures: a big-time, big-budget blockbuster that is also a deeply intimate and personal film.

The story, complex but clearly told, sees three extraordinary men battling over the fate of Gotham, not to mention their very souls; it’s a love/hate triangle that rises like a towering obsidian pyramid over the city.

Batman, aka Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), has settled comfortably into his role as the Caped Crusader, working in harmony with his ally Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldman) to keep Gotham’s crime rate in check. Nevertheless, when the incorruptible new district attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), makes it his personal mission to clean up the city, Wayne is relieved, and begins toying with the idea of hanging up his cape and cowl.

Unfortunately, Wayne’s plans for early retirement are rudely interrupted by a force of sheer malevolence the likes of which has rarely been seen either in Gotham or in all of movie history: enter the Joker. The late Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker is magnificently monstrous, a thing of glorious repugnance. Ledger throws all caution to the wind, immersing himself in the role of a man who has maggots where his heart should be. And even without the scars, clown makeup, yellow teeth and greasy hair, Ledger’s inside-out personification of evil would ring frighteningly true.

Please excuse the hyperbole, but Ledger has left us with no other option than to gush.

The Joker doesn’t have a plan, except that he’s made it his mission in life to spoil everyone else’s plans, especially those of Batman and Harvey Dent, Gotham’s two pillars of justice. In order to force Batman to reveal his identity, he begins a murder spree that will only end when The Dark Knight is unmasked. As for Harvey Dent, suffice it to say that the Joker manages to strip much of the sheen from Gotham’s golden boy by hitting him where he’s most vulnerable.

I could go on and provide you with a laundry list of the film’s virtues Р from the meticulously-constructed script to the impeccable art direction, to the Oscar-worthy editing Р but I think it would be more telling of the film’s true power if I simply told you that it moved me to tears

There is a scene in which Bruce Wayne confides in his butler/best friend Alfred (Michael Caine) that he feels responsible for the rise of the Joker. “Today you can finally tell me ‘I told you so,’” he says to Alfred. “Today I don’t want to,” Alfred replies.

It breaks your heart. -Jason Johnson

THE VERDICT
A magnificent filmmaking achievement; the greatest superhero movie ever made. Highly recommended.