By Amanda Hu
The comic book world has a penchant for reinvention. While the common bystander usually knows of the characters, the universe that surrounds those heroes and villains is a swirling labyrinth of information, open to complete change at the whim of a new writer or editor. Batman hasn’t escaped this practice, being catapulted from dark to whimsical and back again since the well-known DC character’s first appearance in 1939.
His latest cinematic turn in The Dark Knight and its precursor, Batman Begins, is a scintillating and extremely well-done return to what Batman is at his core and what well-written comic books made him famous for being: a still-vulnerable vigilante who, in addition to thwarting crime, has to fight for the very right to protect the citizens of Gotham City.
Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) starts to feel the strain of maintaining his cloaked persona as he faces two enemies: the elusive and impossible to pin-down Joker (Heath Ledger) and the man he sees as Gotham’s law-abiding saviour turned ultimate defeat, Harvey Dent/Two-Face (Aaron Eckhart). The film presents Batman’s loss reaching a new level, painting a perfect picture of his underlying torment and disturbed nature.
The Dark Knight sees the end of Batman’s kitschy elements–overly dramatized scenes and silly, quaint dialogue–and trades them in for moments that force, not only the characters, but the audience to question humanity’s existence and the consequences that go along with that. While cheeky moments remain, they manage to enrich the movie, not be the sole foundation of it.
The inclusion of Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) in this Batman incarnation as the technological mastermind behind most of the “Bat-gadgets” in the film does much for Batman’s credibility and relatable qualities, further reinforcing his origins as an everyman superhero. The film further grapples with that notion as copycat Batmans start to unleash themselves on the city, a move that works well in pulling the character away from his crime-fighting ways.
While director Christopher Nolan’s execution and the film’s premise alone propel Dark Knight far beyond the original movie series or the ’60s cult classic TV show, it reaches excellence due to its cast’s performances. One of the smartest moves was replacing Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhaal as love interest Rachel Dawes. Though she isn’t given much to work with in terms of character development, Gyllenhaal manages to give a substance to Dawes that Holmes lacked. Bale’s stoic Wayne is the best of any Batman actors’ attempts–and a far cry from Adam West’s iconic happy-go-lucky portrayal–and puts forth a heart-wrenching and emotionally beaten man.
Ledger’s performance, though, stands out above all others. While the hype surrounding his Joker was in part due to his untimely death soon after finishing the film, the character is acted so perfectly that it’s hard to remember he is in fact an actor playing a role rather than a truly evil and real force of nature. The audience doesn’t learn much about the Joker’s character throughout the film beyond his propensity for destruction, making for a decidedly unsettling feeling whenever his scarred face graces the screen or cackling is heard, even at a distance.
Any change comes with the possibility for success or disaster. For the comic book world, The Dark Knight sets a new standard for the “comic book movie,” proving that the genre doesn’t have to make corny shout-outs to common knowledge aspects of that universe to be successful, but can instead build a self-sustainable base from the best of comic lore and still set box-office records.