According to Colwell

Heath Ledger totally disappears into the role of the Joker, helped by creepy makeup and greasy hair, but mainly through a transformative performance. This makes it easier to watch The Dark Knight, without thinking of Ledger’s untimely death. Which is not to say that it is an easy movie to watch. Dark from start to finish, punctuated by psychopathic killings at the hands of the Joker and the mechanical rasping of Batman’s voice. The movie is intense and gripping, and as a bonus creates the villain Two-Face from picture-perfect D.A. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart).

Christian Bale, as Batman, benefits from twice the sage advice as most superheroes: he has both Michael Caine (as butler Alfred) and Morgan Freeman (as Lucius, Batman’s version of 007’s gadget-maker Q) to offer guidance on ethics, bad guys, women and life. Watching the movie I couldn’t help thinking how nice it would be to have a couple of senior wise friends ready to whip up a nice breakfast or a space-age gizmo at a moment’s notice, especially if they were played by Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman and were being paid handsome salaries from my billion dollar empire. But I digress.

This is definitely the creepiest Joker the Batman franchise has produced. His stated goal is not money but mayhem. He derides schemers and planners, but this rings a bit hollow when his various plans for mayhem obviously required a tremendous amount of advance planning and scheming. Somehow, for example, he single-handedly wired a hospital for a textbook example of how to completely demolish a building with no one noticing him or the bombs. Ultimately, Batman must make a noble sacrifice for the greater good which is in turn affirmed in an admittedly surprising (or I guess I’m more cynical than even Batman) ethical collective act. The screenplay by Jonathan and Christopher Nolan (who directed) has to ignore a critical point in order for this to work, but it’s a minor flaw in an otherwise compelling action flick.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 10th, 2008 at 8:45 pm and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.