The Dark Knight Movie 2008
Movie Information
Source : Wikipedia
Nolan's inspiration for the film was the Joker's comic book debut in 1940, the 1988 graphic novel The Killing Joke, and the 1996 series The Long Halloween, which retold Two-Face's origin. The nickname "the Dark Knight" was first applied to Batman in Batman #1 (1940), in a story written by Bill Finger. The Dark Knight was filmed primarily in Chicago, as well as in several other locations in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong. Nolan used an IMAX camera to film some sequences, including the Joker's first appearance in the film. On January 22, 2008, some months after he had completed filming on The Dark Knight and six months before the film's release, Heath Ledger died from a toxic combination of prescription drugs, leading to intense attention from the press and movie-going public. Warner Bros. had initially created a viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight, developing promotional websites and trailers highlighting screenshots of Ledger as the Joker, but after Ledger's death, the studio refocused its promotional campaign.
A co-production of the United States and the United Kingdom, The Dark Knight was released on July 16, 2008 in Australia, on July 18, 2008 in North America, and on July 24, 2008 in the United Kingdom. Considered by film critics to be one of the best films of the 2000s and one of the best superhero films ever, the film received highly positive reviews and set numerous records during its theatrical run. With over $1 billion in revenue worldwide, it is the 19th-highest-grossing film of all time, unadjusted for inflation. The film received eight Academy Award nominations; it won the award for Best Sound Editing and Ledger was posthumously awarded Best Supporting Actor. The Dark Knight Rises, the final film in the trilogy, was released on July 20, 2012.
The Dark Knight (2008) Plot Summary
Source : IMDb
Batman raises the stakes in his war on crime. With the help of Lieutenant Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to dismantle the remaining criminal organizations that plague the city streets. The partnership proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a reign of chaos unleashed by a rising criminal mastermind known to the terrified citizens of Gotham as The Joker.
- Written by Peteagassi
Set within a year after the events of Batman Begins, Batman, Lieutenant James Gordon, and new district attorney Harvey Dent successfully begin to round up the criminals that plague Gotham City until a mysterious and sadistic criminal mastermind known only as the Joker appears in Gotham, creating a new wave of chaos. Batman's struggle against the Joker becomes deeply personal, forcing him to "confront everything he believes" and improve his technology to stop him. A love triangle develops between Bruce Wayne, Dent and Rachel Dawes.
- Written by Leon Lombardi
The follow-up to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight reunites director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale, who reprises the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne in his continuing war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good. The triumvirate proves effective. But soon the three find themselves prey to a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker, who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces Batman closer to crossing the fine line between hero and vigilante.
- Written by Anonymous
Gotham's new district attorney has been elected. His name is Harvey Dent, and he has a radical new agenda that threatens to take down Gotham's organized crime underworld once and for all with an iron fist. But the emergence of the rogue vigilante known as Batman has caused problems for Dent and his agenda. A new criminal mastermind known only as "The Joker" has arrived and aims to take Gotham out from under Harvey Dent's iron fist. The Joker stages a masterfully planned bank robbery and robs the Gotham mob blind. He uses this money to stage a series of horrific and strategic attacks against the city and its' people - each one carefully planned and aimed at Dent and Batman while causing the rest of the city to enter panic mode. Meanwhile, Batman thinks he might have found a lead to The Joker thanks to Wayne Enterprises' dealings with a shady Chinese banker, and that takes Batman and Alfred to Hong Kong. The Joker has no rules, but Batman has only one, and the Joker aims to make Batman break his only rule. But who will be the one to take him out - will it be rogue vigilante Batman or will it be elected official Harvey Dent, the new hero with a face?
- Written by halo1k
With just one year having passed after taking out Ra's Al Ghul's plan to have Gotham eliminated and the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Jonathan Crane AKA the Scarecrow, and after the city was nearly plundered with his toxins, Bruce Wayne and his vigilante alter-ego the Batman, continue the seemingly endless effort to bring order to Gotham, with the help of Lt. James Gordon and newly appointed District Attorney Harvey Dent. But a new threat has now emerged into the streets. The Dark Knight faces a rising psychopathic criminal called The Joker, whose eerie grin, laughter, and inhuman morality makes him as dangerous than what he has yet to unleash. It becomes an agenda to Batman to stop the mysterious Joker at all costs, knowing that both of them are in an opposite line. One has no method at all and seeks to see the world plunge into the fire he has yet to light. One represents the symbol of hope and uses his own shadow to bring the peace and order he has yet to accomplish doing.
- Written by Anonymous
When Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent launch an assault on the mob, they let the clown out of the box, the Joker, bent on turning Gotham on itself and bringing any heroes down to his level.
- Written by Trance
Film Plot Summary
Source : FilmSite
In secret, Batman met with Lt. James Gordon (Gary Oldman), the head of the Major Crimes unit, to discuss whether to include the new DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) in their plan to combat the mob by seizing mob-run banks and flushing out its dirty money with marked bills (rather than go after the single Joker). [Official police policy was "to arrest the vigilante known as Batman on sight."]
While Wayne Manor was being rebuilt, Bruce Wayne lived in a city penthouse and centered his operations in an underground Batbunker, where he discussed Dent with his butler Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine): "I need to know if he can be trusted." Dent was dating Bruce's childhood friend and assistant DA Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), and in court prosecuting the new head of the Falcone crime family, Salvatore Maroni (Eric Roberts). Meanwhile, Wayne Enterprises decided to refuse a joint venture with Chinese accountant Lau (Ng Chin Han) of Lau Security Investments (LSI) in Hong Kong - their revenue stream was possibly "illegal." Convinced that Dent was sincere about fighting crime, Bruce decided to host a fundraiser for him.
A meeting of underworld crime bosses including Maroni, the Chechen, and African-American gang leader Gambol (Michael Jai White) was held to discuss where to protectively hide mobster money, now that US banks were targeted. Lau (by TV hookup) announced that he had already moved all mob deposits to his investment firm in Hong Kong, far away from Dent's jurisdiction and the crackdown by Lt. Gordon. [Gordon suspected that Dent had Maroni's people in his office, who tipped off the mob to move their "life savings" immediately.] The meeting was interrupted by laughter from the Joker, who proposed to kill their mutual enemy Batman - "It's simple. We, uh, kill the Batman" - in exchange for half of the Mafia's money. Gambol was incensed by the clown and challenged him with a bounty: "Five hundred grand for this clown dead." Shortly later, the Joker cleverly infiltrated through Gambol's gang into a pool hall where he threateningly told the boss about the origin of his facial scars (and his perpetual smile), and then killed Gambol - and took over his operation.
With Wayne Enterprises inventor Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), Bruce prepared for their trip to Hong Kong to capture Lau and extradite him back to Gotham City for prosecution. In a nightime scene in Hong Kong after entering into the high-rise LSI building by cannonballing through the glass, Batman captured Lau, blew out the windows with sticky bombs placed earlier, and released a high-tech weather balloon into the air. A C-130 transport plane with a Skyhook device flew overhead and snagged the two of them. Back in the US when questioned by Assistant DA Rachel, Lau agreed to testify in court - and identify all of his mob clients who had pooled their money - all the mobsters could be charged as one "criminal conspiracy" - in exchange for Lau's immunity and return to Hong Kong. Over five hundred mobsters were arrested and charged with multiple counts of extortion, racketeering, fraud, conspiracy murder, and obstruction of justice.
To retaliate, the mobsters hired the "clown" Joker to eliminate Lau and to reveal Batman's identity ("Will the real Batman please stand up" - in a video-taped ultimatum, he announced: "Batman must take off his mask and turn himself in. Oh, and every day he doesn't, people will die - starting tonight"). Lt. Gordon attempted to provide protective custody for the Joker's initial targets - Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb (Colin McFarlane) and Judge Surrillo (Nydia Rodriguez Terracina), but they were murdered (by poisoning and a car bombing, respectively) - by corrupt officers in the police force. The third target was Harvey Dent - who was confronted personally by the Joker at the Bruce Wayne fund-raiser. The Joker first circled around "Harvey's squeeze" Rachel and intimidated her with a knife as he told her another version of his facial scarring. Dent escaped detection when Batman arrived - the superhero was forced to fight against the Joker's thugs and then saved Rachel when she was tossed off the side of the building.
During ceremonies to honor the fallen Comm. Loeb, Mayor Anthony Garcia (Nestor Carbonell) was the Joker's next target, but the murder plot was thwarted by Batman. As Lt. Gordon dove in front of the Mayor to protect him, he appeared to be shot in the back. [Shortly later, an unhurt Gordon went into hiding to avoid risking his family's safety.] The public was becoming weary of crime and the continual murders (the Joker couldn't be apprehended and the next to be targeted was Rachel), and pressure built for Batman to reveal himself. Dent held a press conference to convince the public to keep Batman's identity secret: "Should we give in to this terrorist's demands?" but the public clamored for the Batman to step forward. Surprisingly, Dent stepped forward and sacrificially admitted: "I am the Batman" before he was arrested - to serve as bait to draw the Joker out: "When he attacks, the Batman will take him down." The police convoy escorting Dent to the County Jail in a SWAT van was ambushed by the Joker, driving a 16-wheeler.
The chase scene was exceptional because of the wide variety of vehicles involved -- police cars, an overhead helicopter, a SWAT van, the 16-wheeler, and Batman's new wide-wheeled Batpod after his own Batmobile suffered "damage catastrophic." The copter was brought down in a fiery crash, and then there was a furious pursuit. The sequence ended with a face-off battle between the Joker in the 16-wheeler and Batman's Batpod - with the spectacular sight of the 16-wheeler flipping end over end. After crawling from the wreckage, the Joker stood in the street and challenged Batman's Batpod to hit him, when Lt. Gordon was able to put a gun to the Joker's head ("We gotcha, ya son-of-a-bitch!"). For his efforts, Gordon was appointed as the new Police Commissioner by the Mayor. However, that night as Dent and Dawes were being escorted by police, they disappeared.
Enraged, Batman interrogated the Joker in the Major Crimes Unit building - who proposed that the police escorts were working for Maroni, and that the two hostages were in warehouses on opposite sides of the city. Each was tied up and wired to oil-drum explosives with timers set to about 5 minutes - and only one could be saved by Batman ("Choose between one life or the other. Your friend the district attorney, or his blushing bride-to-be"). Batman chose to go after Rachel, while Gordon and other police went to get Dent - however, the Joker lied and had reversed locations. Meanwhile, the Joker escaped from custody (with Lau) using a planted bomb, as Batman arrived to find Dent. The DA had struggled to escape, causing his face to be half-covered with diesel fuel. When the bomb exploded, the left side of his face was hideously burned (and he adopted the name Harvey "Two Face"). Rachel perished from the detonated bomb when Gordon arrived too late to save her.
At abandoned shipyard docks in the hold of a rusted cargo ship, the Joker had piled the mob's money into a 30-foot high stack (with Lau bound at the top). The Chechen watched as the Joker set the pyre on fire - and then became the Joker's next victim (off-screen). Meanwhile, blackmailing Wayne Enterprises accountant Coleman Reese (Joshua Harto) had determined Batman's identity and went on TV threatening to reveal his secret - in response, the Joker issued an ultimatum: "I don't want Mr. Reese spoiling everything" - "If Coleman Reese isn't dead in 60 minutes, then I blow up a hospital." Police protected Reese from being eliminated, so the Joker, dressed as a nurse (with a nametag reading Matilda, the name of Ledger's real-life daughter), visited Dent in his Gotham General Hospital room, and convinced him to seek revenge against various "schemers" in his life. Dent flipped his coin - and when it came up heads - spared shooting the Joker in the head. As the Joker left, he detonated bombs in the hospital and drove off with a school bus full of evacuated hospital patients.
After recovering, Dent vengefully sought out all of his enemies, including corrupt cop Officer Wuertz (who was shot after a coin-flip came with the scarred side up), crime boss Maroni (who was killed in an overturning car crash), and Officer Ramirez (Monique Curnen). The Joker issued a chilling announcement to Gotham: "Come nightfall, this city is mine, and anyone left here plays by my rules. If you don't wanna be in the game, get out now" - this caused a massive flight from the city, although hampered by a bomb threat targeted at the city's bridges and tunnels. The only alternative for evacuation was by ferry - one, named The Liberty, was packed with released convicts in orange uniforms ("Harvey Dent's most-wanted scumbag collection"), and the other, named The Spirit, with "sweet and innocent" civilians. The Joker (located by Batman at the Prewitt building) announced his "social experiment" to the ferry riders - he had put explosives on both ferries: "Each of you has a remote to blow up the other boat...At midnight, I blow you all up. If however, one of you presses the button, I'll let that boat live. So who's it gonna be?"
Two of Gordon's SWAT teams readied themselves at the Prewitt building, where it appeared that the evacuated hospital patients were held hostage by the Joker's clown-masked henchmen. Meanwhile, Dent forced compromised Officer Ramirez to call Gordon's wife/family and lure them to the building where Rachel died - holding them as hostages at gunpoint. Batman discovered that the Joker had disguised the hostages as his own men ("The clowns are the hostages...Doctors are targets"), forcing him to fight off both the SWAT teams and the Joker's henchmen. Batman viciously fought against the Joker past the midnight deadline, with neither ferry blowing up the other. The Joker was thrown off and held suspended on the side of the building by Batman - but kept alive ("You just couldn't let me go, could you?...You truly are incorruptible, aren't you? Huh? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness"). Batman left the Joker in the SWAT team's hands as he went to locate Dent.
Lt. Gordon found the crazed Dent in the 52nd Street warehouse, holding his family members hostage - and Batman arrived soon after. With three coin flips of chance, Dent judged everyone's innocence, including his own. Heads for Batman, although he shot him in the abdomen (protected with body armor). Heads also for Dent. When he flipped for the fate of Gordon's son, Batman saved the young boy by hurling himself at Dent and tackling him off the side of the building, where he fell to his death. Gordon feared that the citizenry of Gotham would lose hope if they knew how Dent's heroic goodness had been brought down by the Joker. Batman urged: "They must never know what he did...the Joker cannot win. Gotham needs its true hero." Batman urged Gordon to hold him responsible for the many murders: "I killed those people. That's what I can be...I'm whatever Gotham needs me to be."
In the film's epilogue, Gordon delivered Dent's eulogy at his funeral, calling him a hero ("Nothing less than a knight, shining"). As Gordon smashed the Bat-Signal with an axe, Batman said:
"You'll hunt me. You'll condemn me. Set the dogs on me. Because that's what needs to happen. Because sometimes the truth isn't good enough. Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded."
The film ended with Gordon and his son watching Batman flee and disappear into the darkness, to escape from a massive police sweep with dogs, and to rise another day: "Because we have to chase him" although "he didn't do anything wrong." Gordon ended the film with this voice-over:
"Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight."
Film Notables (Awards, Facts, etc.)
A violence and action-packed superhero film based on the decades-old comic-book hero, with Christian Bale reprising his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman (in a sleeker bat-suit), and deceased co-star Heath Ledger as the villainous, ghoulish bank robber named the Joker (who tragically died shortly after the film's shoot, six months before the film's release).
Director Christopher Nolan brought his 'Batman trilogy' to a close with the eighth Batman film: The Dark Knight Rises (2012), following after his own Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008).
It was notoriously snubbed for a Best Picture Academy Award nomination, and some credit its omission with forcing the Academy to expand the number of nominees to 10 in 2009.
With eight Academy Award nominations (and two wins): Best Supporting Actor (Heath Ledger posthumously) and Best Sound Editing.
It made box office records in its first weekend, making it the biggest three-day opening weekend of all time with $158.4 million, beating the previous year's Spider-Man 3 (2007) at $151.1 million. [This record was topped by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (2011) at $169.1 million.] The movie set a new record for the biggest opening day gross at the box office with $67.1 million. [This record was topped by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (2011) at $91 million.]
Most impressively, it became only the second movie in history to break the $500 million barrier in domestic box-office, the first being James Cameron's Titanic (1997) with a domestic gross of $601 million. And it hit the $500 million mark in just over 6 weeks -- half the time it took Titanic to reach the same milestone.
The film brought in $533.3 million (domestically) and $1,004.6 million (or over $1 billion) worldwide, with a production budget of $185 million.
The Dark Knight Movie 2008 Best Reviews
Source : Rogerebert
“Batman” isn’t a comic book anymore. Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” is a haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy. It creates characters we come to care about. That’s because of the performances, because of the direction, because of the writing, and because of the superlative technical quality of the entire production. This film, and to a lesser degree “Iron Man,” redefine the possibilities of the “comic-book movie.”
“The Dark Knight” is not a simplistic tale of good and evil. Batman is good, yes, The Joker is evil, yes. But Batman poses a more complex puzzle than usual: The citizens of Gotham City are in an uproar, calling him a vigilante and blaming him for the deaths of policemen and others. And the Joker is more than a villain. He’s a Mephistopheles whose actions are fiendishly designed to pose moral dilemmas for his enemies.
The key performance in the movie is by the late Heath Ledger, as the Joker. Will he become the first posthumous Oscar winner since Peter Finch? His Joker draws power from the actual inspiration of the character in the silent classic “The Man Who Laughs” (1928). His clown's makeup more sloppy than before, his cackle betraying deep wounds, he seeks revenge, he claims, for the horrible punishment his father exacted on him when he was a child. In one diabolical scheme near the end of the film, he invites two ferry-loads of passengers to blow up the other before they are blown up themselves. Throughout the film, he devises ingenious situations that force Batman (Christian Bale), Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to make impossible ethical decisions. By the end, the whole moral foundation of the Batman legend is threatened.
Because these actors and others are so powerful, and because the movie does not allow its spectacular special effects to upstage the humans, we’re surprised how deeply the drama affects us. Eckhart does an especially good job as Harvey Dent, whose character is transformed by a horrible fate into a bitter monster. It is customary in a comic book movie to maintain a certain knowing distance from the action, to view everything through a sophisticated screen. “The Dark Knight” slips around those defenses and engages us.
Yes, the special effects are extraordinary. They focus on the expected explosions and catastrophes, and have some superb, elaborate chase scenes. The movie was shot on location in Chicago, but it avoids such familiar landmarks as Marina City, the Wrigley Building or the skyline. Chicagoans will recognize many places, notably La Salle Street and Lower Wacker Drive, but director Nolan is not making a travelogue. He presents the city as a wilderness of skyscrapers, and a key sequence is set in the still-uncompleted Trump Tower. Through these heights, the Batman moves at the end of strong wires, or sometimes actually flies, using his cape as a parasail.
The plot involves nothing more or less than the Joker’s attempts to humiliate the forces for good and expose Batman’ secret identity, showing him to be a poser and a fraud. He includes Gordon and Dent on his target list, and contrives cruel tricks to play with the fact that Bruce Wayne once loved, and Harvey Dent now loves, Assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). The tricks are more cruel than he realizes, because the Joker doesn’t know Batman’s identity. Heath Ledger has a good deal of dialogue in the movie, and a lot of it isn’t the usual jabs and jests we’re familiar with: It’s psychologically more complex, outlining the dilemmas he has constructed, and explaining his reasons for them. The screenplay by Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan (who first worked together on “Memento”) has more depth and poetry than we might have expected.
Two of the supporting characters are crucial to the action, and are played effortlessly by the great actors Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. Freeman, as the scientific genius Lucius Fox, is in charge of Bruce Wayne’s underground headquarters, and makes an ethical objection to a method of eavesdropping on all of the citizens of Gotham City. His stand has current political implicstions. Caine is the faithful butler Alfred, who understands Wayne better than anybody, and makes a decision about a crucial letter.
Nolan also directed the previous, and excellent, “Batman Begins” (2005), which went into greater detail than ever before about Bruce Wayne’s origins and the reasons for his compulsions. Now it is the Joker’s turn, although his past is handled entirely with dialogue, not flashbacks. There are no references to Batman’s childhood, but we certainly remember it, and we realize that this conflict is between two adults who were twisted by childhood cruelty — one compensating by trying to do good, the other by trying to do evil. Perhaps they instinctively understand that themselves.
Something fundamental seems to be happening in the upper realms of the comic-book movie. “Spider-Man II” (2004) may have defined the high point of the traditional film based on comic-book heroes. A movie like the new “Hellboy II” allows its director free rein for his fantastical visions. But now “Iron Man” and even more so “The Dark Knight” move the genre into deeper waters. They realize, as some comic-book readers instinctively do, that these stories touch on deep fears, traumas, fantasies and hopes. And the Batman legend, with its origins in film noir, is the most fruitful one for exploration.
In his two Batman movies, Nolan has freed the character to be a canvas for a broader scope of human emotion. For Bruce Wayne is a deeply troubled man, let there be no doubt, and if ever in exile from his heroic role, it would not surprise me what he finds himself capable of doing.
The key performance in the movie is by the late Heath Ledger, as the Joker. Will he become the first posthumous Oscar winner since Peter Finch? His Joker draws power from the actual inspiration of the character in the silent classic “The Man Who Laughs” (1928). His clown's makeup more sloppy than before, his cackle betraying deep wounds, he seeks revenge, he claims, for the horrible punishment his father exacted on him when he was a child. In one diabolical scheme near the end of the film, he invites two ferry-loads of passengers to blow up the other before they are blown up themselves. Throughout the film, he devises ingenious situations that force Batman (Christian Bale), Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to make impossible ethical decisions. By the end, the whole moral foundation of the Batman legend is threatened.
Because these actors and others are so powerful, and because the movie does not allow its spectacular special effects to upstage the humans, we’re surprised how deeply the drama affects us. Eckhart does an especially good job as Harvey Dent, whose character is transformed by a horrible fate into a bitter monster. It is customary in a comic book movie to maintain a certain knowing distance from the action, to view everything through a sophisticated screen. “The Dark Knight” slips around those defenses and engages us.
Yes, the special effects are extraordinary. They focus on the expected explosions and catastrophes, and have some superb, elaborate chase scenes. The movie was shot on location in Chicago, but it avoids such familiar landmarks as Marina City, the Wrigley Building or the skyline. Chicagoans will recognize many places, notably La Salle Street and Lower Wacker Drive, but director Nolan is not making a travelogue. He presents the city as a wilderness of skyscrapers, and a key sequence is set in the still-uncompleted Trump Tower. Through these heights, the Batman moves at the end of strong wires, or sometimes actually flies, using his cape as a parasail.
The plot involves nothing more or less than the Joker’s attempts to humiliate the forces for good and expose Batman’ secret identity, showing him to be a poser and a fraud. He includes Gordon and Dent on his target list, and contrives cruel tricks to play with the fact that Bruce Wayne once loved, and Harvey Dent now loves, Assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). The tricks are more cruel than he realizes, because the Joker doesn’t know Batman’s identity. Heath Ledger has a good deal of dialogue in the movie, and a lot of it isn’t the usual jabs and jests we’re familiar with: It’s psychologically more complex, outlining the dilemmas he has constructed, and explaining his reasons for them. The screenplay by Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan (who first worked together on “Memento”) has more depth and poetry than we might have expected.
Two of the supporting characters are crucial to the action, and are played effortlessly by the great actors Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. Freeman, as the scientific genius Lucius Fox, is in charge of Bruce Wayne’s underground headquarters, and makes an ethical objection to a method of eavesdropping on all of the citizens of Gotham City. His stand has current political implicstions. Caine is the faithful butler Alfred, who understands Wayne better than anybody, and makes a decision about a crucial letter.
Nolan also directed the previous, and excellent, “Batman Begins” (2005), which went into greater detail than ever before about Bruce Wayne’s origins and the reasons for his compulsions. Now it is the Joker’s turn, although his past is handled entirely with dialogue, not flashbacks. There are no references to Batman’s childhood, but we certainly remember it, and we realize that this conflict is between two adults who were twisted by childhood cruelty — one compensating by trying to do good, the other by trying to do evil. Perhaps they instinctively understand that themselves.
Something fundamental seems to be happening in the upper realms of the comic-book movie. “Spider-Man II” (2004) may have defined the high point of the traditional film based on comic-book heroes. A movie like the new “Hellboy II” allows its director free rein for his fantastical visions. But now “Iron Man” and even more so “The Dark Knight” move the genre into deeper waters. They realize, as some comic-book readers instinctively do, that these stories touch on deep fears, traumas, fantasies and hopes. And the Batman legend, with its origins in film noir, is the most fruitful one for exploration.
In his two Batman movies, Nolan has freed the character to be a canvas for a broader scope of human emotion. For Bruce Wayne is a deeply troubled man, let there be no doubt, and if ever in exile from his heroic role, it would not surprise me what he finds himself capable of doing.
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