10 things that make Dark Knight the best Batman ever.
I saw Dark Knight last night. On an IMAX screen. If it's at all practical for you that's the way to see it It rocks. Hard. If you haven’t seen the movie yet I would urge you (a) to do so and (b) to bookmark this post and read it later, because it’s impossible for me to write this list without revealing certain plot points that you might prefer not to know about in advance. The list below the cut will outline my reasons for believing that The Dark Knight is not just the best Batman movie to date but is also is the best representation of The Batman in any medium.
1: The scale of the thing
The vertiginous aerial shots of Gotham and Hong Kong, the two Gotham ferries, the destruction of Gotham General Hospital: Some of these are undoubtedly created, or at least enhanced, using the magic of computers but in this movie Gotham comes across not like Anton Furst’s impressionistic, evocative but ultimately unrealistic sets for the 1989 Batman movie nor like Bill Finger’s original cartoonish vision of the parallel-universe Manhattan but as a real place where really bad things can and do happen.
2: The Alex Ross ‘scars’ moment
Most current comics enthusiasts acknowledge Alex Ross as a master of the medium, and his depiction of Batman as more or less the definitive take on the Caped Crusader’s look. When Christan Bale changes his shirt after another hard night of crimefighting there is a momentary, but definite hint of one of the most famous Ross images of the battlescarred syperhero. It’s a reminder that unlike, say, Superman this is a man who suffers real pain, and real harm, in his quest for justice. And it’s a nod to comic book nerds everywhere. Which is great.
3: The Michael Keaton gag
When Bruce discusses redesigning the cowl so that he can finally turn his head, we all know who he’s taking a poke at. And it ain’t Adam West. The costume is finally turning into something that someone might actually wear. And throughout the Bat’s 69-year history, that’s a first.
4: The Joker’s “origin”
The Joker is a nihilistic sociopathic force of nature, which is why the well-intentioned Red Hood origin story (so memorably reprised in Alan Moore’s Killing Joke book) or (heaven forfend) the ridiculous conflation of Jack Napier and Joe Chill in Tim Burton’s Eighties Batman, is not only unnecessary but an active disadvantage. The Joker in Dark Knight propounds a new origin every time he mentions his past. All of them, and none of them, are equally true. You’re left unsure of who he is and what he is. That’s his power.
5: The Gotham Knight DVD.
One of the problems with depicting Batman in a more ‘realistic’ setting is that many of his Rogues’ Gallery are kind of ridiculous. The problem is that these ridiculous adversaries help make Batman what he is. The Gotham Knight DVD, which fits ‘between’ Batman Begins and The Dark Knight in the Chris Nolan continuity circumvents the issue by putting the Batman of the Dark Knight up against larger-than-life adversaries like Killer Croc and Deadshot but, by dint of being animated, suspends disbelief from a slightly stronger wire than a live-action movie would permit. You haven’t seen Gotham Knight? You should.
6: The ‘Q’ moment with Lucius Fox
In an evident riff on the James Bond and Q chemistry, Fox shows Bruce how the flechettes in his gauntlets work. Apart from giving us a welcome chuckle, it’s a demonstration that everything on the new Batsuit has a function.
The 1939 Batman outfit has numerous decorative frills that serve no practical purpose, and don’t particularly help Batman look like a bat. Would a real masked avenger leap around the deadly night streets of Gotham looking so fruity unless there was a practical reason for it? Yes, he’s driven, even obsessesed, but he’s not a frivolous fellow.
7: Batgirl
There’s been a lot of talk about the possibility of Robin being introduced as a character in the next Batman movie. Rightly, a number of people have suggested that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to bring a brightly-coloured crimefighting orphan acrobat into the Nolanverse.
Batgirl’s origin though is as an unauthorised Batman copycat – a little like those inept costumed vigilantes we see early on in the film. It would be easy to bring Batgirl in next time around without ‘breaking’ Nolan’s more grounded take on the Bat legend. And who do we encounter when we first see Jim Gordon’s home? Young Babs Gordon. We never quite see her face though. I can’t help wondering whether that might be deliberate…
8: Batman the outlaw
Early on in the movie Batman is close to being accepted by Gotham. That’s not what he wants, and it’s not what we want. He wants to be unnecessary, we want him not to be the daylight walking officially deputised Special Constable of the Adam West years. He becomes an outlaw again at the end of the movie in a way that perpetuates his outsider status while demonstrating the selfless nature of true heroism. And that’s Batman.
9: The White Eyes
The Batman of the comics has almost always had blank white eyes. For one thing, they’re easy to draw and for another if you allow regular eyeholes there’s always a suggestion of the outfit having been worn as a sort of joke. Take a look at The Flash if you don’t know what I mean. The white eyes give the comic book Batman an inscrutable menace.
Ever since the Burton years though, moviemakers have opted for a combination of eyeholes and Dusty Springfield make up in a sort of approximation of the Alex Ross ‘integrated eyelids and mask’ concept. It sort of works, but it makes no sense. Are there loads of Wet-wipes in the utility belt? At last, in Dark Knight, we get white-eyed Batman. And, crucially, for a good reason.
10: Heath Ledger
At his most terrifying when at bay in a police cell. The Joker of the Dark Knight is the first Joker we’ve seen that isn’t kind of funny. When he belabours Batman with an iron bar he evokes a physical menace that Jack Nicholson’s camp clown or Cesar Romero’s moustachioed buffoon never could. This is the Joker that offed Jason Todd.
When, at the end of the movie, he suggests that he and the Batman will be clashing again and again over the years it’s more than a fan-friendly evocation of The Killing Joke, it’s a deadly promise. And, because of Ledger’s premature death it’s a promise that’s destined to be unfulfilled. It’s hard to imagine any actor ever daring to play the Joker again after this unsurpassable unrepeatable performance, and when you realise that it’s like a dagger to the heart. Which is just what The Joker would have wanted.
