Don't read the (negative) New Yorker review. Very spoilerish.
It's a shame, because Denby's one of my favorite reviewers.
Here are some non-spoiler bits:
Christian Bale has been effective in some films, but hes a placid Bruce Wayne, a swank gent in Armani suits, with every hair in place. Hes more urgent as Batman, but he delivers all his lines in a hoarse voice, with an unvarying inflection. Its a dogged but uninteresting performance, upstaged by the great Ledger, who shambles and slides into a room, bending his knees and twisting his neck and suddenly surging into someones face like a deep-sea creature coming up for air. Ledger has a fright wig of ragged hair; thick, running gobs of white makeup; scarlet lips; and dark-shadowed eyes. Hes part freaky clown, part Alice Cooper the morning after, and all actor. Hes mesmerizing in every scene. His voice is not sludgy and slow, as it was in Brokeback Mountain. Its a little higher and faster, but with odd, devastating pauses and saturnine shades of mockery. At times, I was reminded of Marlon Brando at his most feline and insinuating. When Ledger wields a knife, he is thoroughly terrifying (do not, despite the PG-13 rating, bring the children), and, as youre watching him, you cant help wonderingin a response that admittedly lies outside film criticismhow badly he messed himself up in order to play the role this way. His performance is a heroic, unsettling final act: this young actor looked into the abyss.
http://www.newyorker.com/contact/em...2532&did=4&sitetype=1&affiliate=ny-randomcart
Parts of The Dark Knight were shot with IMAX cameras, and if you see the movie on one of those enormously tall screens you will feel, as Batman swoops down from a building at night, as if you were falling into a canyon. Its a giddy thrillbring Dramamine. The rest of the movie, photographed by Wally Pfister, is sharp and clear, with shots of Gotham (i.e., Chicago) in glistening night splendor, and plentiful use of vast modernist interiors with slab floors. Yet I cant rate The Dark Knight as an outstanding piece of craftsmanship. Batman Begins was grim and methodical, and this movie is grim and jammed together. The narrative isnt shaped coherently to bring out contrasts and build toward a satisfying climax. The Dark Knight is constant climax; its always in a frenzy, and it goes on forever....
The thunderous violence and the music jack the audience up. But all that screw-tightening tension isnt necessarily fun. The Dark Knight has been made in a time of terror, but its not fighting terror; its embracing and unleashing itwhile making sure, with proper calculation, to set up the next installment of the corporate franchise.
Here's the link, but, again: it's spoilerish.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2008/07/21/080721crci_cinema_denby
