The Dark Knight (2008)

As you may or may not know, I was quite excited about this film.

When bat-day finally came last week I went through a bizarre gamut of emotions, I felt like I was going to a wedding, then I went a bit distant, later I felt confused and empty as if I hadn't slept for a week, then I felt like I'd won something amazing but had forgotten what it was.

I think I got so excited that I went beyond excitement, journeying into a numb psychological territory where I felt nothing whatsoever and yet still knew something very big was going to happen. Like Christmas Eve on the on the first year I started to understand what Christmas was.

As we queued to go in I was so worked up I actually said that I felt like I was queuing up to go into space.

I went for a dump before I entered the auditorium purely because, given my unpredictable mental state, I honestly didn't know if the excitement of seeing The Dark Knight being projected at the IMAX would make me literally shit in my pants. Once the movie started, had I needed a piss I think I'd have undone my laces and done it in my shoe rather than leave my seat.

It's not unfair to say that as the Warner Brothers logo faded in and a burning bat-sign fell toward the five storey high screen - my expectations were set pretty high.

Three hours later I was in a worse state coming out than I was going in. We both had to stumble to the nearest pub like glassy-eyed, shell-shocked zombies and order a stiff drink.

Even then I had trouble articulating my thoughts because no matter how high my expectations were set, and they were set ridiculously high, the Dark Knight had managed to surpass them on every level.

There are so many things right with this film that it is almost impossible to know where to start.

One thing you'll notice from almost every review so far is that no-one mentions the plot or structure. Which makes it all the more surprising to discover that this is one of the strongest things about the movie.

It deals with peoples limits, their individual boundaries of right and wrong and what it takes to make those people cross the line.

The Joker incrementally deconstructs all the key players and some of the lesser characters - slowly pushing them toward their individual breaking points. With each anarchic stunt the Joker pulls, he drags them closer toward his own moral abyss until they all teeter on the brink. Then he laughs in their face and pushes them over the edge.

With no need for back story the Joker arrives fully formed and proceeds tear a ragged swath through every scene he's in. The ultimate villain, made fantastically unsettling and unpredictable through grim blend of the sociopathic and psychopathic. But the real icing on the cake, and possibly the reason this is one of the finest Joker interpretations of any medium, is that despite his lunatic appearance and claims that he has no plan, Joker isn't crazy in any gibbering conventional sense. He is a manic genius and he's playing his frightening game six moves ahead of everyone else.

When you have to adhere to the law, even Batmans distilled law of 'anything goes except killing' how do you fight an anonymous, psychopathic, sociopathic genius with no rules and nothing to loose. How do you fight him and not become him?

It's the ultimate summation of who and what the Joker is and it's fucking amazing to see him come to life in all his sickly cruel, grottily intelligent, unhinged beauty.

It's probably worth mentioning the actor behind the make-up at this point, but that's tricky.

You see, other actors in the film are playing parts. Morgan Freeman plays Lucius Fox although really he's just doing his benevolent Morgan Freeman thing. Gary Oldman plays Lieutenant Gordon, he plays him very well... but you still know it's Gary Oldman to some extent. Bale is Bruce Wayne, definitely, but he's also Bale. Micheal Caine is Alfred but if we're honest he's just Michael Caine. And there's nothing wrong with that.

But Heath Ledger? Heath Ledger playing the Joker?

Heath Ledger doesn't play the Joker, Heath Ledger isn't in the movie. The only place Heath Ledger appears is in the credits - this movie stars the Joker, the actual Joker. There is only the Joker onscreen and he's so stunningly, scarily spot-on that by the end of it you're left not only craving more of him but also actively pitying the poor bastard who attempts to follow him. I laughed, I got freaked out and I was even jumpy at points. He didn't so much bullseye the Joker as shoot one arrow at the bullseye then repeatedly fire thinner arrows into that arrow until he split the atom and nuked any other incarnation of the Joker.

Will he get an posthumous oscar?

If it was up to me he'd get a four hundred foot high solid gold illuminated statue of the Joker on Mt. Lee Perch. The letters beneath it that spell HOLLY would be replaced with JOKER because I had JOKERWOOD for 2 and a half hours. I was dizzy leaving the cinema because all the blood had been rushing to my cock for so long. Basically he was very good.

Still no matter how brightly Mr. Ledger burnt, this is still an ensemble piece and everyone plays their part.

Oldman brings a understated vulnerability to Gordon, watch the way he distractedly looks for a chair in Dent's office, almost nervously making himself comfortable, angrily standing up to Harvey's suggestions of corruption "doing the best with what he's got". He's real, he's a fully formed believable character.

Next take a look at Aaron Eckhart, the new cocksure DA, punching out mafia henchmen in a courtroom, supporting Gordons new hardline on organised crime, Gotham's White Knight. Look at his desperation when he sees things sliding out of control, when he realises he can't win, look at his terror, his heartache when he realises the joke's on him. Then look away when you finally see the thing he becomes.

Last but not least - Bale is back in another great performance that reminds me of a William James quote:

"Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is."

So it is here, we see Bale play Bruce Wayne as he wants others to see him, we see him play Bruce Wayne as he sees himself when he is around Alfred and Lucius then finally we see Bruce Wayne as he really is, as what he has become, what he must maintain and what he is unable to escape from - the Batman.

Which tallies perfectly with my view of Batman.

I always assumed that once he set the whole Batman thing in motion Bruce Wayne fundamentally ceased to exist except as a figment of Batman's imagination.

It isn't Bruce Wayne who dresses up as Batman, it's Batman who dresses up as Bruce Wayne.

He's just as unhinged as the Joker he just has different goals and rules. One thing I would say is that Batman sounds like he needs some Strepsils but then again if someone dressed like that jumped on you then started beating you up and shouting "Where is he?" in that voice you'd either tell him what you knew or just openly empty your bowels into your trousers. So I suppose it works.

If I had one complaint it’s that I think Maggie Gyllenhaal has a face like a poorly potato and a delivery like my friend’s impression of Samantha from Sex and the City. But really that’s just being churlish because anything that stops Katie Holmes being in movies is a good thing.

Acting aside, all this emphasis on the psychological make-up and fragmentation of the characters must mean that there's no time for action, right?

Wrong!

There are two action sequences in particular that piss in other action films kettles, wait for it to boil and then chuck fresh boiling piss in their stupid less-action-having faces.

One scene, a skydiving/skyhook sequence in Hong Kong had my mouth hanging open like even more of a slack jawed simpleton than usual whilst another, involving the Bat-Pod, made me say "WOO-OOW, FUUUUCKING HELL and HOLY SHIT DID YOU FUCKING SEE THAT!" in rapid succession.

There is a bit in the Bat-Pod sequence where Batman does a sort of 'Hoth battle' cable take-down of the Joker's truck, followed by what can only be described as a 180 degree off-the-wall pirouette at sixty miles an hour.

I'm not kidding, I nearly cried. Out of all four of my eyes.

Add to that the opening sequence, the hospital hi-jinks later and the tech mad end scenes and you've got more than enough to chew on between the brainy bits.

As for reports that it's bleak, dark and depressing. Well, the clue is in the title fucko - it's not called BatFun rainbow troubles in crayon land.

Overall the movie takes a lead from Empire in that it pretty much ends with everything being fucked. Corruption is an overwhelming theme throughout.

Are Gordon's men corrupt? Maybe, but what corrupted them? Can Batman be corrupted and forced to break his one rule? Can the most shining example of law and order by dragged down into the depths of depravity? What would it take? Lucius is disgusted by the corruption of his own technology and he too is pushed toward his own moral limit. Even the criminals are double corrupt, turning on each other by the end.

But there is a redeeming feature to be spotted.

You have to look hard for it but it's a pretty relevant one, especially in the sort of climate where the Doomsday clock stands at five to midnight and the UK Terror Threat stands at SEVERE, indicating an attack is 'highly likely'.

The one positive message from the Dark Knight is that while single people can be pushed to into the abyss of chaos or corruption, people united as a group can't - people as a united force can make a choice and make a difference. The only time anything goes right in the movie is when people act together against something they don't agree with rather than simply reacting to the terror or corruption.

Ultimately Batman isn't a superhero. There is nothing super about him. He can't fly or shoot lasers out of his eyes or throw buses at people. He can't bend space and time or control peoples minds.

He's just a symbol. He's also a very rich psychologically damaged individual who got very good at martial arts after he watched his parents get murdered. There's no reason why he couldn't exist in real life, it would be weird - maybe crazy but possible.

It makes sense that the story should be realistic, even downbeat and depressing. That people should let other people down, that they should fall and give up instead of getting up, that they should fail, that things should go wrong and that you should be left thinking "Fuck I wish everything had worked out".

Because guess what? That's fucking life, that's what happens in real fucking life.

At the end of Batman Begins Gordon talks about escalation and that's exactly what The Dark Knight does, it escalates everything. The sense of scale, scope of story, the script, the acting, the actors, the effects, the plot, the vision, the direction and the cinematography are all taken up a notch.

At one point Bale says"Batman has no limits". After the record-breaking opening night, record breaking weekend and record breaking first week I'd say he's right. With this Batman, Nolan has broken free of the constraints of a 'superhero movie' and demolished the 'comic book movie' genre.

I wrote earlier that I always thought that it isn't Bruce Wayne dressing as Batman but Batman dressing as Bruce Wayne. Well this movie can't be pigeon holed or reduced down to something as easy as 'the perfect comic book adaptation' nor is it 'the perfect Batman film'.

It is simply a perfect film, one which happens to feature a man dressed as a bat.