Superhero epic blurs line between supreme action, complex characters

“The Dark Knight” is both the best action movie to hit theaters in quite some time and the smartest. It is a film that creates teeth-grinding tension, gives it release through explosive action sequences and then makes you think about about what separates the good guys from the bad in the fleeting moments before the next build.

And that’s just the first 10 minutes.

Clocking in at a bat-wing membrane over two and a half hours, “The Dark Knight” doesn’t seem a minute too long, which is quite a feat. Until the very last voiceover, which tries to sum up the movie in a way that’s impossible if you haven’t already figured it out, you’ll be so wrapped up in the captivating procession of visual chaos and ordered character study that you won’t even think to look at your watch.

Except perhaps to see how much time you have left to marinate in the moody, unpredictable world director Christopher Nolan has made.

Picking up where his “Batman Begins” left off, a villain named The Joker (Heath Ledger) is terrorizing both the citizens of Gotham City and its criminals through a series of high-profile robberies. The movie opens with a gang of clown-masked-men holding up a mob-run bank. Their plan seems perfectly organized, and yet chaos runs through it. Each man is responsible for carrying out his part of the heist, but he must then take out one of his fellow criminals.

It’s a darkly comedic sequence, and it perfectly sets up the mindset of The Joker. As he says later in the film, his favorite things are gasoline and knives, neither of which cost all that much.

Some of the buzz surrounding “The Dark Knight” has invariably focused on Ledger, who died of an accidental overdose in January. The good news is he justifies the attention; the bad news is that he might just overshadow the other great performances in the film.

Like Jack Nicholson, Ledger doesn’t look much like the classic comic book Joker. Unlike Nicholson, Ledger is given a script that perfectly taps into the character’s time-honored role. The Joker is the chaos to Batman’s staunch defense of order.

Ledger makes great use of that script, transforming the classic maniac into a greasy, slouching murderer whose only real goal is to undermine the illusion of order that Batman has created. Like Tyler Durden in “Fight Club,” his Joker is a rebel that will appeal to those in our society who believe that the stability we claim as our goal is nothing more than thinly veiled self-interest.

Where the last Batman franchise derailed because it focused so much on the villains that it forgot to make Bruce Wayne an interesting character, “The Dark Knight” continues its predecessor’s development of Wayne as a man haunted by a personal need to bring order and the repercussions of that drive.

Besides his occasional tendency to make Batman’s contrasting growl slightly over-the-top, Christian Bale once again plays both Wayne’s flaky playboy hedonism and Batman’s relentless menace with polar perfection. Batman becomes every character that has ever sought to maintain order through the questionable techniques of terror. Sure, he’s terrorizing criminals, but how long can you balance on the line between order and chaos without wavering toward the latter?

“The Dark Knight” perfectly asks that question as Batman uses an array of gadgets that tap into the sense of childhood fantasy the Bond films once inspired. That one such technology, a sonar imaging device, is eventually put to use in incredibly invasive surveillance — resembling techniques already forcing ethical dilemmas in real-world wars on crime and terror — speaks not only to the film’s relevance but its asking of timeless questions.

The film’s greatest strength, however, is to ask those questions without making you feel like you’re being beat over the head by them.

Not that you won’t feel you’re being beaten over the head. “The Dark Knight” features some of the most awe-inspiring action scenes you’ve ever seen. From the opening bank heist to a perfectly paced car chase involving the Joker’s attempt to hijack a prisoner being transferred by a SWAT team, the film succeeds through one of the most potent mixtures of effects and actual acting ever seen.

Where the Spider-Man or Hulk films often felt like video games with their cartoonish effects, Batman stays firmly grounded in tangible textures. Even when you know you’re looking at a computer-generated image, you’ll swear Bale is actually inside that suit.

As Wayne teams up with Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to try to stop The Joker’s violent, and deceptively chaotic, rampage, all three characters are drawn by The Joker toward a conclusion that will force them to examine every assumption they’ve made about the nature of society.

Dent’s journey toward discovery is particularly heartbreaking. Those who’ve followed the Batman legend over the years will know why without being told, and whether you know or not, this new version will give the film a poignancy absent in most big-budget action films.

Taking the best of comics such as Alan Moore’s “The Killing Joke,” Tim Burton’s earlier films and modern cinematic techniques, Nolan has created the greatest film telling of Batman’s story. That it is also a true thriller and a fascinating examination of the duality inherent in superhero stories is all the more stunning.

Jake TenPas can be reached at jake.tenpas@lee.net or 758-9514.

‘THE DARK KNIGHT’

Bruce Wayne .......... Christian Bale

Alfred ..................... Michael Caine

Joker ....................... Heath Ledger

James Gordon ......... Gary Oldman

Harvey Dent ........... Aaron Eckhart

Rachel Dawes ... Maggie Gyllenhaal

Lucius Fox .......... Morgan Freeman

Warner Bros. presents a film directed by Christopher Nolan. Produced by Christopher Nolan, Charles Roven and Emma Thomas. Written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan. Photographed by Wally Pfister. Edited by Lee Smith. Music by Hans Zimmer.

Running time: 152 minutes.

Rated: PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence and some menace).

Playing at: Regal Albany 7 and Ninth Street 4 Cinemas