The Dark Knight

A truly fantastic and engaging movie, "The Dark Knight" lives up to and exceeds the hype, fuss and intense interest that has surrounded it. It's very doubtful that a comic-book film will ever top this, and yet throughout you're not even considering that it's a superhero film; it's that good.

The plot follows Batman (Bale) on from the events of “Begins”, as his one-man war on crime gains momentum, but attracts more criminals than it dispenses with, one of which is the demonic, scar-faced Joker (Ledger) who seeks only to spread anarchy and discord, but is hired by the Mob to sort out the Batman. It’s up to the caped crusader and two allies, the erstwhile District Attorney Harvey Dent (Eckhart), and Jim Gordon (Oldman), the one true cop in the Gotham force, to counter this new threat, but the Joker supplies a new challenge to the three men; how far can one man be forced to go before he loses everything?

It's class across the board acting-wise here...the main and supporting cast is full of heavyweights, and they make the film much, much more than a Batman movie. It's a crime drama with the best of the best playing out the roles.

People will go on and on about Heath Ledger here, and so they should. He steals the film whenever he's onscreen, and you miss him when he's not. The Joker is no longer a clown with a bag of tricks and a laughing gas canister; he’s “a dog chasing cars” and an “agent of chaos” who seeks only destruction. Ledger is unrecognisable, and that’s part of the appeal, his pretty-boy looks shunned, and the freakish face of the Joker, coupled with his eccentric yet malevolent performance, mark this portrayal as a fitting end to a short career.

But Christian Bale, Gary Oldman and Aaron Eckhart more than hold their own, the latter two actors getting meatier and more interesting roles than you'd think, and Bale is the forgotten man here; portraying the idealistic hero who simply cannot do anything right, despite his efforts to clean up the city and have a normal life. Gyllenhall is in an unfortunate position being the lead female, but she is a great actress, and her Rachel Dawes is one who looks back to her past with Bruce Wayne, and forward to the future with Dent, and conveys a conflicted and confused woman very well.

There are some great supporting actors here, but Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine perhaps stand out over the rest, simply because they're only playing supporting roles, yet are two incredibly well-known and talented older actors. They ground the storyline, and provide hope and a moral compass to Bale's Bruce Wayne, showing the class and intelligence with which Nolan has picked a supporting cast.

The film looks, sounds and feels epic. Using Chicago as a stand-in for Gotham was a very good idea - you really get a feel for the place, and so the action appears more grounded and more real. The entire city seems to have been taken over by the production here; how did they manage to get so much access to so many areas? No matter; it grounds the film in realism, and allows for the audience to imagine what the effects of such a freak as the Joker would be on a real city. Nolan knows how to direct action, but more importantly he knows how to direct drama, tension and conversations, and these scenes are the beating heart of the film. He has consistently stepped up his directing from Memento (which is a better first film than some directors will ever achieve in their careers), and in this film shows that he is one of the best directors in film right now.

What he achieves is not only a real hold on the story, but also an eye for the necessary action and a really strong grip on the character-focused scenes. It strikes a chord with you when you remember not just the action, but the intense one-on-one dialogues between Ledger, Bale and others, because Nolan is that much better at portraying real characterisation than many, many other directors ever could be.

The stunts and action are as real as can be, and in particular acclaim must be given to the scenes containing the flipped 18-wheeler and the exploding hospital; because they are REAL!. There is so much that is said that sticks with you after, and nearly all is from the mouth of the Joker. Ledger's reading of the lines is so right, so twisted that you cannot imagine the dialogue without the performance. There is precious little humour, but with such a serious storyline you wouldn't expect that, and Jonah Nolan’s scriptwriting career is certainly in bloom from here on in (currently leaping to heights such as an ‘Escape to New York’ remake, as well as a future Spielberg vehicle, ‘Interstellar).

Musically, with Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard composing, you know that this film would have a special soundtrack. If only every big movie had such collaborations between composers! The theme for Ledger's Joker is so, so bizarre, but it achieves the same as the character it represents; it cuts through, it jars with your mind and it makes for an uncomfortable experience, but at the same time, you can't not listen to it. The Batman theme is understated, but ever-present, and this is another strength here; we don't have a bombastic Superman or Spider-Man theme here; rather, the film speaks for itself, and the music is but a hint behind the action.

The film is dark in subject and depiction, but its rating here in the UK (12A) is more than appropriate, and it doesn’t need a 15 rating at all. It's up to parents whether they think their child can handle it, and the sooner they realise this, the sooner that films might stop getting blamed for the latest teenage crime statistics. The violence ebbs and flows, but you’d expect worse, and what holds most of the rating is the Joker himself – just looking at Ledger’s face (not with-standing the feeling of looking upon one of the final performances of a famous actor) is enough to justify the rating.

The funny thing about these movies is that they portray something that seems so ridiculous as so real; and as such, it's not that far away from realism, but just enough to suggest that it could never happen. However, the actions of the Joker eerily echo those of the many terrorist groups that are active today, and many of the ways in which this is depicted suggest that the filmmakers sought to present this as such. Not that the film should be considered a commentary on modern times; sure, the surveillance gadget can be construed as Patriot Act imitation, but in all honesty the film is seeking to present the idea that chaos and anarchy is boundless, and even the good can fall; Batman is no Bush, and the Joker is no suicide bomber.

So in summary, the standouts in this film are the quartet of Bale, Ledger, Eckhart and Oldman, all actors at the top of their game and all proving that even a movie about a rich man fighting crime in a batsuit can be a masterclass in filmmaking, plot, action and performance. Their performances, and the plot itself both combine to show that a comic-book film not only can be handled with class and seriousness, but that with the right actors, any story can be made a masterpiece.

10/10