To call The Dark Knight the greatest superhero movie ever made is an understatement of titanic proportions. And yet, conversely, the film is so devoid of camp and superhero tropes, and is presented with such assured realism, that it hardly feels like a superhero movie at all. The most eagerly anticipated popcorn blockbuster of the summer is, in fact, one of the greatest crime epics ever made, taking its place beside such films as The Godfather, The Untouchables and Heat.

The Dark Knight picks up roughly a year after Batman Begins left off. With the origins story out of the way, director Christopher Nolan launches us face first into a Gotham where the criminal underworld is in disarray thanks to Batman’s vigilante justice, Police Lieutenant Jim Gordon’s (Gary Oldman) unswerving leadership, and District Attorney Harvey Dent’s (Aaron Eckhart) relentless pursuit of lawbreakers. If Batman is Gotham’s dark knight, Dent is its white knight, no less virtuous and brave, a superhero without the need of a mask, Batman’s alter ego who has even supplanted the Caped Crusader in the heart of Bruce Wayne’s dearest friend, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Gotham, it seems, is safe once again. That is until a new criminal mastermind arrives on the scene.

Calling himself The Joker (Heath Ledger), the newcomer unleashes a reign of bedlam across Gotham. He strikes a deal with organized crime — he’ll make it his mission in life to kill Batman. For an exorbitant price, of course. Gotham is plunged into anarchy as The Joker begins picking off city officials one by one in order to draw Batman out of the shadows. And Bruce Wayne/Batman must employ every weapon at his disposal (provided once again by Morgan Freeman) to combat his most personal and ferocious foe yet, even as The Joker’s scorched earth tactics force him to ask the ultimate question: how far is he willing to go to ensure Gotham’s safety? It is a question that has been asked a dozen times to a dozen different square-jawed heroes, but none have responded as Batman does here.

Bale’s Batman is invulnerable but his Bruce Wayne is anything but. His body is a roadmap of crisscrossing, interlocking scars upon which can be read the history of his treacherous, Herculean labors. Wayne is almost surprised by the hostility his actions have caused within the criminal community. He speaks like a lover spurned, incensed by their betrayal. As usual, Alfred (Michael Caine) is the voice of wisdom: “You crossed the line first, sir. You hammered them. And in their desperation they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand. Some men aren’t looking for anything logical. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

The Joker is such a Nero. If Health Ledger gets nominated for an Academy Award, it will not be because of his untimely and tragic death, it will be because his Joker is madness incarnate, rollicking lunacy expressed in twitches, hidden beneath make-up that is always in some sort of unkempt decay, and given the voice of psychotic, yet clownish malice. What makes The Joker evil is not what he does but what he gets others to do. He doesn’t want to harm others so much as he wants to so corrupt them, so dishearten them, so slaughter their last vestiges of hope that they will ultimately shed the restraints of civilized society and turn ravenously on each other.

The Dark Knight is unremittingly dark. It burrows deeper and deeper into the gloom as the (slightly overlong) two and a half hours progress. And yet, ultimately, as irrepressibly murky as it is, the film is driven by a sort of contemporary Capraesque idealism. Some have labeled The Dark Knight as nihilistic. Not even remotely. The film is all about good men doing right and making the difficult decisions even as the world implodes around them. It is about the sacrifice the best of us make to protect those we love, a sacrifice we desperately need and only occasionally deserve.

There are no laugh-out-loud lines in The Dark Knight. This is not a fun movie. It is a pulse-pounding, adrenaline-fueled, exhilarating experience. The film never stops building — each climax is more breathtaking and bracing than the last. The whooping and hollering you will find yourself doing comes as a result not of the humor, but of the sheer, unrepentant audacity of the action.

Christopher Nolan is a genius. His direction is burnished, inspired, flawless and his camera, with its azure blue eye, soars with the energized hubris of a thing intuitively aware of its greatness. The script crackles and pops, constructing the architecture of a philosophical morality play while fiendishly filling in the gaps with whiz-bang pyrotechnics. The special effects, many of them done without the benefit of CGI, are so good as to be nearly invisible. Chicago, standing in for Gotham, is perfectly elegant and perfectly decrepit. And the eerie, concussive Zimmer/Howard score is akin to being pounded by a relentlessly majestic surf.

The Dark Knight vaults over Batman Begins and, like The Empire Strikes Back, The Godfather II and Aliens will be remembered as a sequel superior even to the masterpiece that spawned it. Do not worry about going in with unrealistic expectations. Your expectations pale in comparison to what The Dark Knight is prepared to deliver.

© Copyright 2008 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.