The Joker: Delicious Psychosis

Holy Crap.

Have you seen The Dark Knight? It's incredible.

I wasn't a huge fan of Batman Begins. It was a well done movie, but it was largely just a glorified action movie. Yes the action was good, yes the cinematography was stunning, but where was the depth? Where was the pathos and the moral dillemas of Batman? Instead of a conflicted, troubled hero, we had a determined, hardened ninja (?!) out to clear out a stable of cookie-cutter villians.

This movie far surpasses the other one in every respect. First, it's just a straight-up captivating film. I think the moment I realized just how good this movie is was a scene that involves a tanker truck being thrown end over end, as the entire audience simultaneously gasps. As the truck hurtles silently through the air, a capacity crowd sits on the edge of their seats, mouths agape. The movie has several of these moments, where the audience involuntarily, physically reacts to what's happening on the screen. I saw it twice on the opening day (it's that good), and the reaction is always unmistakable.

By the way, all the hype about the Joker is valid. Heath Ledgers portrayal of perhaps the greatest comic book villian of all time is staggeringly good. Dark, violent, and psychopathic, but in a deliciously insane way that makes you both cringe, gasp, and sit agape, even making you laugh. I'm a huge fan of the Jack Nicholson Joker from the original Batman, and I expected that my love for that character would put a taint on the new one, but the two are so very different that the comparison is impossible.

WARNING: YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE MY NERDY COMIC BOOK SIDE. PROCEED WITH CAUTION, AS THIS MATERIAL MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR SOCIAL LIFE

Alright, now I'm not a big fan of DC comics. Other than the graphic novel The Watchmen, (a trailer that made me just as excited as the one for The Dark Knight), the Batman franchise is the lone island in a sea of shallow and largely meaningless fluff in that universe.

But Batman is awesome. I am a firm believer in the role of comics as an art form, as a way to express emotions, stirring themeatic elements, and truths about the human condition, and nowhere is this more obvious than in the Batman stuff.

Batman isn't your bland, generic superhero, who triumphs over villians efforlessly, who is virtuos, faultless, and righteous. Batman is an often-brooding, very human hero, with emotional and psychological complexities, who struggles with the burden of his responsibilities as a hero. And many of his villians, especially the Joker, are as equally complex and troubling as he is.

This movie, unlike the first, delves deep into the thematic gold mine that is the Batman franchise.

First, the Joker's twisted psychology, utterly unlike any conventional thug is played up to great effect. Unlike the Mafia, who are simply greedy and corrupt, the Joker is simply out to, in Alfred's words, "watch the world burn". As he himself puts it, "I'm an agent of chaos", a man who is utterly unmoved by the forces that drive crime and, in many ways, society as a whole. His mangled worldview leaves him practically invincible, immune to intimidation, unmoved by money, and utterly unafraid of death.

Second, the film explores the "Batman/Joker Catch-22", which, as perhaps best explored within one of the greatest comics of all time, "The Killing Joke", is the fundamental reason why the Joker is Batman's most enduring and dangerous nemesis. Batman, whose one rule is that he will not kill, cannot kill the Joker, and the Joker cannot kill Batman, because he is driven to have him break that one rule. Thus the two are locked in an epic, ongoing struggle. As in the comics, Batman is faced with a terrible dillema; if he cannot bring himself to kill, villians such as the Joker will cause mayhem and death, but if he chooses to kill, then he is little better than the scum he is fighting. This dynamic, which pervades the comics, is incredibly powerful, and the movie depicts it masteruflly.

Finally, the film is, in many ways, an analysis on society as a whole. The carnage unleashed by the Joker brings the social structure of Gotham to the verge of catastrophic collapse. The movie brings into sharp focus the inherent fragility in human society. Yet at the same time, it brings out a hopeful glimpse of humanity, in the ferry scene, where the passengers of neither boat opt to destroy the other. The incident is remarkably realistic, incredibly tense, and overall a fascinating situation.

The Dark Knight is an exquisite piece of cinema; even without it's many deeper meanings, the sheer scale and quality of the action and cinematography is worth a look. However, the deeper meanings are what makes it a truly powerful film, one that is definately worth seeing at least once.

And see it in theaters...there are some crazy good sound affects that can really only be fully experinced by a speaker the size of a house.