Sensational, grandly sinister and not for the kids, "The Dark Knight"
elevates pulp to a very high level. Heath Ledger's Joker takes it
higher still, and the 28-year-old actor's death earlier this year of an
accidental overdose lends the film an air of a funeral and a
rollicking, out-of-control wake mixed together. In "The Dark Knight,"
Ledger makes all other comic book screen villains look like Baby Huey.
Like Shakespeare's Iago or Richard III, like Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal
Lecter or Javier Bardem's implacable murderer in "No Country For Old
Men," this is no Method maniac, asking or telling anyone about his
character's motivation. At one point Ledger throws up his hands and
says, agitatedly, that it's a waste of time looking for a rationale
behind the Joker's smeary psycho-harlequin makeup.

"I'm a dog chasing cars," he says. "I wouldn't know what to do with one of them if I caught it."

Director and co-writer Christopher Nolan, who fashioned the screenplay
with his brother, Jonathan, has created the most ambitious and sleekly
beautiful of all the superhero screen outings. A handful of others --
"Superman II" and "Spider-Man 2" come to mind - may have fewer loose
ends and a more exhilarating spirit. They're certainly shorter; this
one is 152 minutes. But "The Dark Knight," which improves upon the
solemn authority Nolan and Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne brought to
"Batman Begins," has an atmospheric shimmer all its own. Its unsung
hero is cinematographer Wally Pfister, who makes every interior and
exterior a thing of burnished, menacing beauty. Shot largely in Chicago
at night, greatly aided by production designer Nathan Crowley, this is
the most nocturnally insinuating entertainment since Michael Mann's
"Collateral."

Sampling every flat Midwestern dialect he no doubt heard while shooting
in Chicago, Ledger gives the Joker the deceptively bland vowel sounds
of heartland America. But Gotham City is no heartland paradise. It
teeters on the verge of bloody anarchy, and its most outright citizen
licks his chops, literally, as if he can't get the taste of blood out
of his mouth.

While billionaire playboy Wayne continues his clean-up campaign, Gotham
City finds a new symbol of righteous hope, district attorney Harvey
Dent (Aaron Eckhart). He has it all: a fervent desire to clean up a
dirty town, plus the love and devotion of Wayne's ex, the assistant
D.A. and one of a small handful of Gothamites who know Batman's true
identity. She's played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, stepping in for (and
improving on) Katie Holmes. Gyllenhaal's curled-at-the-corners smile
matches up perfectly with Bale's.

The D.A. teams up with Batman and the weary honest cop Jim Gordon (Gary
Oldman in a mustache that says "trust me") to combat organized crime,
though Batman's vigilantism has inspired all sorts of copycat, low-rent
imitators. Then, just when the film needs a good jolt, Dent undergoes a
radical physical and psychological transformation and becomes,
literally, two-faced.

The transformation comes at a narrative cost. The film's focus is
thrown slightly out of whack, and it's too bad his coin-flipping gambit
is so like that of "No Country's" Anton Chigurh. Not everything in "The
Dark Knight" works: Some of the more painful flourishes -- a grenade
plopped in a bank manager's mouth, the terrorization of Gordon's
children -- are too much. Yet so much of "The Dark Knight" works on
different levels simultaneously. It's a brooding crime saga with some
spectacular action sequences. My favorite pits Bale's Batman and his
"Bat-Pod," the world's deadliest, most awesome motorcycle, against
Ledger's Joker in an 18-wheeler. The setting is Chicago's LaSalle
Street canyon, and what I love about the scene -- aside from its eerie,
3 a.m. vibe -- is Nolan's reliance on good old-fashioned stunt work.
"The Dark Knight" offers plenty of digital effects, but they never take
over.

Nineteen years ago, Jack Nicholson's Joker won a lot of the credit for
the popularity of director Tim Burton's "Batman." In contrast to that
stylish but uneven picture, one of the splendid things about "The Dark
Knight" is its refusal to squander its villain. This is a true ensemble
piece, and you can't say that of most $180 million franchise products.
Ledger's scenes are few, carefully considered, often startlingly brutal
(one scene, over in an eye-blink, involves a disappearing pencil trick
and a man's skull) and freakishly effective.

MPAA rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence and some menace). Running time: 2:32