I wasn't sure how they were going to pull off changing the actress playing the love interest (a big improvement), and plotting two super villains, but Christopher Nolan achieved it admirably. Not perfectly, but admirably.
To the film's advantage, it was shot in Chicago and utilized some of the best downtown locations since the Untouchables.
Chicago actor, Ron Dean, plays a corrupt cop, and I'm always happy to see him outside of my regular viewings of the Fugitive. Although I found the integration of Chicago and "Gotham" (aka NYC) a bit odd at times, like the intersection of 25th and Cicero? Wha? But the use of the odd half streets/alleys off of Jackson, the gorgeous LaSalle, footed by the stock exchange, El covered Lake Street, Lower Wacker Drive and a host of other fab locations made me exclaim numerous times that "every movie should use x location!" or "Why aren't more movies shot in Chicago?", and my personal favorite, "New York is so ugly in comparison."
This includes the scariest parking garage ramp I've ever had the horror of driving down. (Rush Hospital off of Ashland)
I previously used "admirably" instead of "perfectly" because, while the parallels between the two villains' agendas work on paper, in the film, they felt glossed over and forced. I had little emotional investment in Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal) - his fiance & Batman's love interest, or even the moral highground of Lucien Fox, played by Morgan Freeman. And when an audience isn't engaged by Morgan Freeman's moral highground, you've just got too much going on, damn it!
But, wow! Heath Ledger is unrecognizable. With his hunched back, sunken eyes, early 20th century accent, and grimacing laughter, he creates the only truly terrifying Joker. This Joker could kill Robin with a lead pipe. This is the Joker of the Dark Knight. Wonderful. His performance declares the great tragedy of his loss to the art of film. He clearly had an extraordinary range and talent. And he's totally gonna get an Oscar.
His performance reminds me why the Tim Burton Batman franchise just didn't hold up. I usually blame Michael Keaton and the penguins with striped rockets on their backs. But really, with the exception of Danny Devito's astounding Penguin, the earlier Batman franchise was too goofy and cartoony. The Batman comics of the last 25 years have been so terrifying and gruesome, so bleak and corrupted, that the Burton Batman feels absurdly operatic in comparison. Operas have their own wonderful quality, but one would be hard pressed to claim that they are emblematic of a contemporary reality.
The use of the Jackson and LaSalle St. Chicago locations, which hearken back to the Untouchables and obviously much earlier films of the depression, link our currently bleak and destitute times with that era. Serendipitously, the Dark Knight coincides with the worst economic situation since the depression and I think we are all looking to that time to brace ourselves and prepare our minds for what is to come.
The special effects were all great and the Bat-Mobile has never been badder. But for the characters, the film depends upon the audience having seen the earlier Batman Begins in order to feel or understand anything about Rachel or Lucien, or even Bruce Wayne for that matter. The corruption of two cops holds little punch other than an intellectual scorn for failed officers. The death of Rachel involves a twist that distracts from any emotion the audience might feel at her loss. Although I do love the characterization and performance of Harvey Dent's descent into madness and villainy and the progress of Commissioner Gordon into a commissioner.
So it could have been better. But it could have been soooooo much worse. And I did really enjoy it, was shouting at the screen and loved the adventure.
