Comic Book Movies 101: The Dark Knight

• 30th Mar 2011

It’s six months after the events of ‘Batman Begins’. Batman hopes to give up the superhero gig and hand over his obligations to new DA Harvey Dent, who also happens to be dating love-of-his-life Rachel Dawes. But the arrival of the Joker (Heath Ledger) forces Batman and Dent to question all they stand for and will drive them both to their limits.

This is the first Batman film without the word ‘Batman’ in the title – signalling to us that there’s more at stake this time. It’s like ‘Batman Begins’ times ten. Now that all the back story (or should I say ‘bat story?’ No?) for Batman is out of the way, there’s room for some all-out villain action. Step up Heath Ledger. When news of Ledger’s death hit in January 2008 some said that playing the villain in a comic book adaptation would never serve as a worthy epitaph for such a wonderful actor. How wrong they were.

Make no mistake – this film is all about Heath Ledger. Without sounding too harsh, whether he would’ve won the Oscar if he hadn’t died is debateable – but I make that statement on the strength of the Academy’s record on nominating/rewarding comic book and graphic novel adaptations, not on Ledger’s acting. Ledger was the first posthumous winner of the Best Supporting Actor award, and only the second posthumous acting winner ever (the other one was Peter Finch who won the Best Actor award for the 1976 film ‘Network’) and was also the first in any of the major Oscar categories for a superhero film. In fact, he posthumously won a total of 32 Best Supporting Actor awards for his work on ‘The Dark Knight’. It’s a testament to Ledger that all of his scenes appear as he completed them in the filming – Nolan didn’t add anything in the editing suite.

It’s a mesmerising performance. The Joker springs from Gotham’s corrupt loins as a fully formed being. There’s no origin story here – just the tale of a monumental rise to power.

There aren’t many actors who could still manage to look like a sinister master-criminal whilst wearing a red wig, nurse’s uniform and a badge reading “Matilda” (the name of Ledger’s daughter). From the minute he makes his entrance – and boy does he make an entrance – he takes over the whole screen. The freaky makeup and physical tics (both apparently Ledger’s ideas) create a genuinely frightening character whose next move seems totally unpredictable. As Alfred puts it: ‘some men just want to watch the world burn’. There are so many words I could use: demented, maniacal, psychopathic, anarchic, malevolent. The lack of any tangible back story (he spins two yarns about an abused childhood, neither of which, presumably, are true) means that he’s literally chaos personified. He has no sympathy or empathy – he’s as happy threatening to kill a small child as he is blowing up boatloads of people or setting fire to a massive pile of cash (and a banker – although I’m sure a few of us wouldn’t mind doing that at the moment). He’s not in it for the money; just the mess. He probably wouldn’t even care if he blew his own fricking leg off.

While the Joker’s motivations are non-existent, Harvey Dent’s voyage to the dark side is something else entirely. At first glance the addition of Two-Face seems like overkill – why do we need another villain? But it’s Harvey’s story that gives the film its emotional side – without him all we’d have is the totally unsympathetic Joker. ‘Die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain’ he says prophetically early on in the film. He could be Bruce’s saving grace – the self-confessed White Knight who can save Gotham without donning a mask and kinky rubber outfit. He and Batman form a slightly uneasy alliance and for a while it looks like Bruce might be able to hang up his utility belt. But, sadly, not even Dent is immune to the Joker’s corrupting influence. Two-Face is Batman taken to the extreme – a bereaved man turned vigilante who’s taken the law into his own hands but lacks the moral conscience that Wayne is forever trying to stay true to. He’s working to his own twisted justice system where the bad (as he sees them) guys’ fates are decided by the flip of a coin.

All of which brings us to the man himself. Inevitably, given the power of Ledger’s performance, Bale suffers from a bit of sidelining. It’s not as bad as Michael Keaton’s complete eclipse by Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton’s ‘Batman’ – Bale is too big a presence and Nolan too interested in Batman’s internal conflicts to allow that to happen. But it does feel like he’s off screen a lot. Harvey Dent (pre-Two-Face, obviously) provides Bruce with a light at the end of the superhero tunnel – the possibility of being able to give it all up and have an easy life. Batman’s dilemma this time is how to hang on to the power he amassed in the first film and also make it work the way he wants it to. This is especially difficult when the Joker comes along and first of all moves the goalposts, then picks them up, runs away with them and sets them on fire. More than ever poor old Batman is fettered by that pesky conscience of his making it easy for the Joker to play him like a bat-shaped violin. In order to fight the villain, can he avoid becoming the villain himself? And if he hadn’t made it his mission to clean up Gotham, would the Joker even have bothered turning up there?

Alfred (Michael Caine) and Lucius (Morgan Freeman) are both back although neither of them spend much time on screen, despite the film’s length. Lucius has a bit of a strop and Michael Caine uses the word ‘bloody’ an awful lot, though luckily not in the same sentence as ‘doors’ or ‘off’. Gary Oldman also returns as Lieutenant Gordon, the one incorruptible cop in Gotham, and this time gets promoted to Commissioner. Yay! Katie Holmes has been head swapped and become Maggie Gyllenhaal. And she’s much better. Rachel Dawes is supposed to have a real fire in her belly for justice and Gyllenhaal portrays that in a much stronger way than Mrs Tom Cruise managed. Rachel’s one of the few characters who isn’t conflicted – she’s knows what’s right and wrong and that’s it. Unfortunately she suffers from the same problem as Alfred and Lucius – she’s just not on screen enough.

A bit part for Mandy from Hollyoaks was almost enough to make me not want to see the film when it first came out. Thankfully I did blink and miss her.

Gotham itself takes more of a back seat than in ‘Batman Begins’. The look of the city is cleaner and less corrupt than last time around. But that layer of stink is still there, even if it’s better hidden. As one bit player remarks early on, Gotham is still ‘the kind of city that worships a masked vigilante’.

The Tumbler is present and correct and we also have the excellent addition of the Batpod – an updated version of the Batcycle. It was designed by the same guy who did the Tumbler (Nathan Crowley), and is steered by the shoulders rather than the hands with Batman lying on his stomach on the tank. This makes it much faster and more manoeuvrable than a normal motorbike. Wicked.

The film isn’t without its flaws. It’s way too long at two and a half hours – numb bums all round. Nolan is all about character and plot and the problem is there are so many complex characters to be explored that he’s barely able to cram it into the time he has. This means at times it’s quite hard to follow – I struggled, even though I’d watched ‘Batman Begins’ a few days previously so had a pretty good grounding. My sister was completely baffled by the plot and gave up trying to understand it about halfway through (and then fell asleep for the last half hour) – she was content to just enjoy Heath’s performance and the various explosions and chases.

And I guess that’s what it’s all about. If you can decipher the plot, all the better. If you can’t, it doesn’t really matter – sit back, enjoy the ride and revel in the evilness of one of (if not the) best villains in recent film memory.

Emma Wilkin