'The Dark Knight': Through Shadows And Hype

Enlarge Stephen Vaughan/Warner Bros.

Arch-nemeses Batman (Christian Bale) and the Joker (Heath Ledger) are opposing forces of order and chaos in Gotham City.

Stephen Vaughan/Warner Bros.

Arch-nemeses Batman (Christian Bale) and the Joker (Heath Ledger) are opposing forces of order and chaos in Gotham City.

Enlarge Stephen Vaughan/Warner Bros.

District attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) experiences his own inner turmoil while trying to lock up Gotham City's seasoned criminals.

Stephen Vaughan/Warner Bros.

District attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) experiences his own inner turmoil while trying to lock up Gotham City's seasoned criminals.

'You're A Hard Man To Reach'

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'This Town Deserves A Better Class Of Criminal'

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'He Can't Endure This'

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'There's A Batman'

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The Dark Knight, the new Batman film with Christian Bale in the title role, may be the most hopeless, despairing comic-book movie in memory. It creates a world where being a superhero is at best a double-edged sword and any triumph is likely to be short-lived.

Because superhero movies are only as strong as their villains, a good part of the credit for the film's success goes to the late Heath Ledger. He gives a transfixing performance as Batman's arch-nemesis The Joker, a god of chaos whose hardcore nihilism is bone-chilling. He is a different kind of evil than we're used to — very different.

With Christopher Nolan as director, The Dark Knight moves briskly even at 2 hours and 32 minutes. Nolan has increased the intensity by shooting several of the film's action sequences — including the flipping of an 18-wheel, 40-foot tractor-trailer — with a large-frame IMAX camera, giving them an extra sharpness.

The Joker's first official words on screen are "What doesn't kill you makes you stranger." With his disfigured face, white makeup, coal-black eyes and smeared red lips, he's as strange and sadistic as it gets.

It's what he represents, not what he looks like, that conveys the horror of The Joker. He has no scruples, no morals, no goal except anarchy, no plan except the end of planning. As the movie carefully explains, some men aren't looking for anything logical; some men just want to watch the world burn. That's quite a challenge for Batman, and for us.