Everybody’s talking about Heath Ledger’s Joker, and for good reason. He’s literally scary-good. I can’t remember a movie character to which you are so hopelessly riveted every second he’s on the screen.
But it isn’t just Ledger’s Joker, it’s Joker’s movie; the filmmakers give him more cool stuff to do and 10 times as many good lines as the rest of the cast combined. There’s a conscious and unique and mostly (I’m gonna say) successful attempt to make the other main characters dark and/or humorless and/or stoically gallant and/or very conventional. Batman himself is smart and deep and resourceful and tough and utterly witless, as if his smiling or lightening up in any way for one second would have thrown the audience off the trail or ruined the tone or something. [footnote: Just read Peter Travers’ rave in Rolling Stone, in which be compares Christian Bale’s brooding to Al Pacino in the Godfather Part II. Not totally buying it, but I can see traces of that.]
The plot is elaborate and even baroque, but, ironically, by being a psychotic loon, the Joker is somehow the solid center that holds it together. The script actually relies on him to provide, in addition to everything else, exposition and even perspective on what the hell’s going on here. I’m less interested in whether Ledger wins an Oscar than in which category he gets nominated. There has never been a less supporting (and more supported) role.
It’s too long - particularly the portion after the climactic Batman-Joker confrontation - but everything’s too long. The very end, the last two minutes or so, are silly and needless.
But it’s as authentically an experience as a movie can be - creatively sick bad guys, endlessly dogged good guys, draining suspense, drama so tense it practically squeals… this sucker really gets, and keeps, your attention. It’s hard to imagine a blockbuster getting closer to the limits of what good vs. evil, or hero vs. villian, or (certainly) what comic books are about. Without having seen nearly all of them, I can’t believe any superhero story has aimed so high, or so low or… here’s the right word… so deep.
It’s an imperfect movie but a real, real good one. Recommended.
