CurtHarlow.com

Anyone can tell that Batman is Bruce Wayne just by looking at the half of his face the rubber mask does not hide. Also, no matter how genius the genius part of your evil-genius brain is, getting a couple hundred criminally insane henchmen to work together on such a multileveled master plan is less than realistic. Lastly, robbers could never get away form banks by merging their escape bus into a caravan of field trippers (didn’t the other busses notice the explosions?). br /br /None of that matters. For Dark Knight, I suspended my disbelief and consumed all of these cartoon impossibilities and more as if they were a plate of fresh sushi after a three-day fast.br /br /I am not an easy suspender of disbelief. Usually I am that annoying guy who leans over and tells you, whether you want to know or not, exactly why a particular movie moment could never happen in real life. It is not that I enjoy being a film tattle tale (well maybe a little) it is just that most big films look like they spent $80 trillion on CGI and $4.56 on writing.br /br /In the rare film that works I am happy to put logic on the shelf. In fact I just need two simple things from a movie to reach “works” level. Thing one: a plot that fits together (as oppose to the “we could double reverse the tachyon beam’s negative particals Captain” super drivel that represents 90% of all story endings today). Thing two: great acting (instead of the humans as eye candy casting we almost always get in this post 90210 world). Dark Knight has both.br /br /Christian Bale is ok. Even good. Wearing black rubber and talking with all base notes is not easy to pull off. However, next to Keith Ledger, Bale is cardboard. Ledger’s performance is both micro perfect in a thousand little facial details and macro overwhelming because of the loose and free narcissism the flows from his Joker’s every moment on screen. br /br /What dark knight does for Ledgers is delete from our minds any thought that he was a movie star. He was, and will be now forever, an actor. A great actor. His young death made watching his complex performance an exercise in deep regret. As suspended as my disbelief was, in every scene a small part of my conscience was grieving the loss of his life and talent. He breathes, licks, philosophies, walks and talks in an acting clinic that should inspire every drama club member from San Francisco to Savannah. The fast that his performance comes to us post-life is as confusing and dark as the ethical questions raised by the movie itself. br /br /One more thing. The acting is great in part because the dialogue is Swiss watch-esque. Super hero and epic sci-fi movies are an almost impossible challenge for dialogue writing. Their hero’s declarations and villain’s threats almost always slip into one dimensional Simon Lagree sounding mellow-drama. br /br /Confronted with this challenge, some big budget movies just give up. They hope the CGI and the hunk factor of their leads will to distract us from the painfully unreal way they speak to each other on camera (hello George Lucas – are you getting this). Batman somehow pulls off the comic to real life dialogue conversation. Helped by inspired makeup, an important theme and mesmerizing performances I swallowed ever word, no matter how caped, masked and detonated. br /br /For these reason and more, I will watch it again and I never watch them again.