The Dark Knight, though flawed and over long, is by some distance the best superhero adaptation of the last 10 years; a serious, studious examination of the comic book mindset and the unique character of Batman.
What makes Batman such a fascinating hero is his very unheroism. Bob Kane’s creation wasn’t a costumed crusader, but The World’s Greatest Detective – a Sherlock Homes influenced investigator who, for all his privileged lifestyle, was very much a Man rather than a Superman. Christopher Nolan, working off the template set down by Frank Miller in the nineties, expanded that sense of Batman’s humanity in his first film, along with the mesh of troubled psychoses that set Bruce Wayne apart from the alien serenity of Clark Kent. But in The Dark Knight he goes much further – examining what it means to be a vigilante ‘hero’, always on the outside, never understood but always ready to do whatever it takes to play the role of hero, even if to be a hero you must, ultimately, become the villain.
So many films have explored the idea of the psychological vulnerability of heroes that it’s become a cliché in itself. But none have done it with the rigorous, unyielding logic of Christopher Nolan, who takes Batman to the very extremes of public service and sacrifice. As Harvey Dent prophetically states, “You die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain.” Nobody, not even Batman, can escape that simple truth.
We’re pitched in full tilt to a Heat-style bank takedown which deftly introduces the capering anarchy of Batman’s nemesis, The Joker. The Joker has grabbed the attention of Gotham’s criminal fraternity who are suffering under the triple whammy of Batman’s street beatings, Jim Gordon’s crusading policework and fearless DA Harvey Dent’s legal challenges. The mob want to look after their money, but The Joker has bigger plans.
In the hands of Heath Ledger, The Joker gets the full Frank Miller makeover. He’s a blistering psychopath – no history, no backstory, just a human wrecking ball come to destroy. His relationship with Batman is an intense dichotomy. Again, the idea that a hero needs a villain is nothing new, but this sense that the hero creates the villain is an idea that the morally ambiguous Batman is in a perfect position to explore. Grant Morrison’s Batman: Arkham Asylum did it in print, and Nolan follows suit, giving the two antagonists plenty of screen time to explore their issues. And if their fights seem to end in stalemate, then it’s not like, say, The Matrix Reloaded, where a series of inconclusive set-to’s served simply as a special effects workshop, but more like an academic argument contested on each other’s bodies: what do you stand for? How well do you know yourself? How far will you go to protect the things you believe in?
But if it’s an argument, it’s a long, meandering one. There are plenty of impressive action sequences (although Nolan still has a problem with the architecture of a fight scene) but there’s lots of fat that could have been trimmed. The film has a shapeless quality, seeming to lurch from one episode to the next while trying to cram in as much of the human details as possible. Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent cops much of the flack for this, segueing unconvincingly from freedom fighter to fucked up proto-anarchist purely because The Joker catches him on an off day and reminds him that life ain’t fair.
But nobody’s perfect, and The Dark Knight’s wonky dramatic structure and occasionally saggy characterisation do nothing to change the fact that, this time, for once, the hype is more or less right.
