The Dark Knight

Like millions of other people across the country, I saw the new Batman movie this weekend. I should qualify this by saying that I see almost every superhero movie so I didn't just go because of the hype. I'm also not one to rhapsodize movie stars as I generally think they are a bunch of overpaid, narcissistic jerks. Lastly, I can pretty much say I never feel sorry when someone takes their own life, either through purposeful suicide or through moronic self-indulgence.

All that being said, I'm sorry that Heath Ledger is gone if only because I will not get to see him reprise his role as the Joker. This was absolutely one of the best portrayals I've ever seen and it highlights even more what a waste his death is. I won't go on and on about the performance because a lot of people are doing that. Suffice it to say that no matter how cool the superhero is, they are always defined by the villain. In fact, this is where most superhero movies go bad. The villains are either poorly acted, poorly conceived, poorly executed, or just not scary enough. That's okay in a show like the Batman TV series of the 60's. That wasn't supposed to be scary and a lot of the people who played the villains gave classic, if not campy, performances.

However, in the modern superhero movie we now have the technology to make the audience believe a man can fly or shoot webs or have metal blades extend from his hands. So we need a villain that really scares us. A villain that makes you wonder if the hero can actually win. Heath Ledger's Joker gives us that villain probably better than any other superhero movie villain. I think that Ian McKellen's Magneto character was one reason why the X-Men movies worked so well. His character had great power but was also coldly intelligent and wasn't necessarily wrong in his beliefs. Similarly, Ledger's Joker is funny at times but mainly frightening in his lack of allegiance to, well, anything. His appearance, mannerisms, and speech were all masterfully executed. And in many ways, he's not necessarily wrong either.

I don't want to sell Christian Bale short as Batman. He's the best of all of the people who've played the role and the only one since Michael Keaton's first go to effectively communicate the conflict in the character. Some of that is good writing and direction but Bale's performance playing off of characters who in many ways are necessarily more colorful is very good. But Ledger's performance is one of the few I've seen that is worthy of the praise it's received.