The Dark Knight - What Could Have Been

First things first. The Dark Knight is good. Worth seeing. Probably one of the best movies that will come out in 2008. But it's not great, and it's certainly not perfect, and the problem with the movie is that Christopher Nolan had so many great resources at his disposal, and was so close to a truly epic film, that to come up short feels much more disappointing than when a typical movie is ok.

Batman Begins remains my favorite superhero movie, and there are two simple reasons for this. First, Christian Bale is awesome (seriously, he manages to turn Equilibrium from a movie that I would have laughed at to an actually underrated movie). Second, he's given a more complex and interesting character to work with than anyone has before. Batman has always been one of the darker superheroes out there (especially when you look at the other characters created around the same time), and Batman Begins really gives you the sense that Bruce Wayne is tormented by his past and uncertain of his future. Sure, some people might think a full hour of backstory is excessive, but it beats Spiderman's annoying habit of retelling Uncle Ben's death differently each movie so the current bad guy seems like the culprit. In any case, Batman Begins is basically perfect, except for Katie Holmes having all the charisma of a spork, and it ends with the perfect teaser for the next film.

Well, here we are, and while I'm sure that the success of The Dark Knight will ensure a lucrative third movie for all parties, I'm not sure that I'll be so anxious to see it. Why? Read on.

As mentioned above, Nolan largely wasted two excellent performances from Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart. Ledger's gotten a ton of praise for his work, and justifiably so. His version of the Joker is a magnitude of brightness past Jack Nicholson's (though in large part because this version of the series is far darker), and watching that psychosis manifest itself in various subtle ways is a true delight. For me, the greatest moment of the movie is when Ledger spots Rachel Dawes (thankfully played by Maggie Gyllenhall, who if not a stunning beauty is at least capable of acting) after breaking into the Harvey Dent fundraiser. He proceeds to slick his hair back, sashay across the dance floor, and leer at Dawes with a horrific combination of lust, need, and insanity. Ledger's ability will be sorely missed, and he does much to salvage the movie.

Eckhart, who was excellent in Thank You For Smoking, hasn't received the same level of hype, but his job as Harvey Dent is almost as good. He plays off of Bale quite well, and you see in him at best a thinly veiled desire to take down not only organized crime in Gotham but end the reign of vigilante justice that Batman has created.

With all of this at his disposal, plus the already acknowledged ability of Bale to personify Batman, where did Nolan go wrong?

I should have known things might get a bit ridiculous when Batman suddenly needs to fly into Hong Kong in order to bring back some Chinese national who hid all the Mob's money. This scene, which was apparently dropped from the script for Mission Impossible: 4, featured two bits of utter implausibility. First, the idea that in a post-9/11 world a plane could fly right into the middle of downtown Hong Kong without being detected, and second that a phone in the lobby of a skyscraper could emit a strong enough sonic ping to create a completely accurate view of the layout of the 90th (or so) floor, complete with locations for all the guards. This bit of utter nonsense would sadly rear its head again later in the movie.

Fortunately, most of the first two hours of the film is nearly flawless, though Bale seems like more of a bystander. This deserves a mention: the film seems to be more about Ledger and Eckhart battling each other, one as the seeker of order and the other reveling in chaos. Batman seems like an ancillary thought: theoretically at odds with the Joker and allied with Dent, but hoping to be no longer needed. While this might make a certain kind of sense, it means that Bale, who made the first movie so compelling, is absent for large portions of the film.

But finally, we get to the point where Batman has to choose between saving Dent and saving Dawes, and while it's ambiguous as to which he intended to save, Dent is the one who survives, although with half of his face burnt off (giving us Two-Face). It's at this point the movie goes to hell. The Joker creates an elaborate and thoroughly unbelievable Prisoner's Dilemma, Two-Face becomes a laughable villain, who seems mostly interested in frightening little kids, and Batman turns everyone in Gotham's phone into a sonar device (again, never mind how this is possible) so that he can have a perfect view of everything that's going on in the city.

It's in introducing a second villain (Two-Face), while the first one remains at large, where the Dark Knight shows it suffers from Spiderman 3 Syndrome. With two villains, at least one will get the short end of the stick, in this case Two-Face, who basically gets to shoot one or two people before "dying" (we'll see if he stays dead). Tack on an incredibly patronizing and weak voiceover at the end explaining that Batman had to take the rap for Dent's death because it was the only way we could have sprinkles on our cupcakes, and you had a movie that was so much less than it could have been.

You had all the ingredients for an epic film: three great actors, a great director, and a truly legendary performance from Ledger. Too bad someone forgot how to read the recipe.