Darkness prevails

In a world where making a quality film is trumped by Hollywood’s attempt to establish successful money-making movie franchises, it’s more than refreshing to see a film that does both.

“Spider-Man” did it until the third installment’s tragic downfall. “Iron Man” is likely to do it. But both of these great movies pale in comparison to the latest “reimagining” of the “Batman” franchise, “The Dark Knight.”

This latest installment picks up where “Batman Begins” left off, showing Bruce Wayne/Batman (Christian Bale) once again conflicted in his relationship with Gotham City. While considered a vigilante by the police department, he and Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) are still secretly working together to fight organized crime and determine whether defense attorney Harvey Dent can be trusted. Meanwhile, a new villain, The Joker (Heath Ledger), is loose on the streets of Gotham and making it his personal mission to demoralize the Dark Knight.

Using Chicago to create the fictional Gotham City, writer-director Christopher Nolan crafts a black jungle of looming skyscrapers and dark alleys for the action to play out in. This is a true master at work, providing edge-of-your-seat chase sequences, plot twists that surprise and yet manage to stay out of M. Night Shyamalan territory, and dialogue that grabs you and refuses to let go.

The dialogue is executed flawlessly by every major actor in the film, all of them performing at the top of their games. Ledger’s maniacal Joker is nothing short of breathtaking. Will he win the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch? It’s too soon to tell, but he’s got my vote.

Ledger’s Joker is everything you could want in a villain: cold-blooded, murderous, hilarious and so completely insane that he’s borderline genius. And yet he’s not a faceless evil or a repressed childhood abuse victim. The Joker is a complex madman, a son of anarchy willing to do anything to disrupt expectations and defy society’s plans for normalcy.

The Joker is of course the most interesting character in the film, but Bale shines as Batman. Although Ledger steals every scene he’s in, Bale’s performance just can’t be ignored.

Aaron Eckhart refuses to be upstaged by the arguably more popular actors with his portrayal of Dent, especially after being transformed into the vicious villain Two-Face for reasons I won’t give away here.

Maggie Gyllenhaal plays both Wayne and Dent’s love interest Rachel Dawes (an immediate improvement from Katie Holmes) and the always-underrated Oldman portrays Jim Gordon with the same charm and wisdom as in “Batman Begins.”

Although the film’s special effects are top notch, we never see them overshadow the human conflict like most superhero capers. This conflict is a question of how long humanity can remain decent, and it serves as the backbone of the film. It drives the plot, complicates the characters and transforms just another superhero film into an epic crime masterpiece.