The Dark Knight: DVD, Blu-ray Review (2008)

Directed by Christopher Nolan, written by Nolan and Jonathan Nolan, 152 minutes, rated PG-13.

So here it is: The best superhero movie ever. Christopher Nolan's “The Dark Knight” deftly accomplishes all one could hope for, and then it surpasses it until you realize you're watching something special--a movie that's the very best of its kind.

Back in the bat suit is Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne, the troubled billionaire with a secret life known to only a few--his childhood friend and former flame (whom he still loves), Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal); his protective butler, Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine); and the technological mastermind behind Batman's suit and his many gadgets, Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman).

As the movie unfolds, Wayne must come to rely on every one of them when his new adversary reveals himself. He's the Joker, a man for whom chaos and evil are more satisfying than such trivialities as wealth and power, and he's played by Heath Ledger with such skill and seductive force that all of those Oscar rumors likely will prove true--and not out of pity for the man's untimely death.

If Ledger does receive a nomination (I think he will), it will be because he earned it. His performance is slippery, unhinged and transfixing, with echoes of a young Brando in how loose he is onscreen, how easily he disappears into his role, and how for him, evil has the taste of something sweet. Look beyond his cracked clown makeup, his red scar of a mouth and that crazed whinny of a laugh of his, and you'll find the corrupt heart of a terrorist. As with so many terrorists, it's the Joker's intention to spread that corruption as far and as wide as he can by influencing those who matter.

While he does so in Gotham in ways that won't be revealed here, it is safe to say that “The Dark Knight” consumes itself with the idea of how corrupt some are willing to become in an effort to fight corruption itself. It's that undercurrent of irony that runs through the movie, lifting it, and it emerges as one of Nolan's major themes: Once you go to that dark side of yourself, once you give into it and embrace it and realize that you're capable of it, regardless of how good your intentions, what's to become of you when you're faced with the reality of what you have become in the process? Who are you then?

Throughout “The Dark Knight,” the destruction the Joker unleashes is twisted and real, with the consequences of his evil not conveniently brushed away when, say, a major character's life is threatened, but dealt with in ways that are meant to incite shock in the face of madness. This is one of the chief reasons the film is a great superhero movie--it isn't a cartoon willing to overlook the world in which we live now. Instead, it accepts it for what it is, and it follows through with the deadly repercussions.

Armed with some outrageous action scenes and excellent supporting turns by Aaron Eckhart as Gotham’s new district attorney Harvey Dent and Gary Oldman as the soon-to-be Commissioner Gordon, “The Dark Knight” is Christopher Nolan's best film, it is one of year's best films, and it's the best superhero movie, period.

Grade: A

View the film's first six minutes here: