"The Dark Knight"

The Dark Knight solves crime. The Dark Knight cures diseases. The Dark Knight prevents sunburn. The Dark Knight investigates Abu Ghraib. The Dark Knight turns bad mofo Staten Island men into geeksturbating incoherent sad-happy undevirginized men. The Dark Knight creates the sun, the moon, and the stars, Encolpio. The Dark Knight was one opening night, on IMAX, in capital letters, for two and a half hours, playing at six AM, for the first time ever, in CAPITAL LETTERS, because you can't say it enough. The Dark Knight fights fascism. The Dark Knight is what you talk about when you're around people you don't know and you need to talk about something. The Dark Knight makes you attractive. The Dark Knight works wonders. Wonders beyond our human ken. The Dark Knight is Christian Bale. He has three voices in the movie. One is a loud whisper, which he uses when he's wearing the mask, except for one little moment, which you only notice when you see it the second time (and yes, you have to see it the second time.) One is the douchebag billionaire voice, which when he uses you remember that he is a british fellow talking American, but it's okay, because every syllable the man named Bruce Wayne uses is so practiced (because every moment he lives he is imagining himself as someone else [because he, a character conceived by two people about 70 years ago, when his name had a hyphen, and the Great Depression was, you know, happening, just so happen to be the very image of a modern man)]. One, the final one, is the voice he uses when he is speaking to someone who knows that both of the above voices are fake - his butler Alfred, usually, and occasionally his galpal Rachel, who is his affair of the heart, who was played by Katie Holmes and is now and forever played by Maggie Gyllenhall, who is too good for this movie (her role is an awful, awfully noticeable downer in this great movie about men trying to do good and thus[ly] betraying everyone they tell themselves they love.) This is the greatest performance Christian Bale has ever had - impressive, when you consider that he also blew your mind in the preview for the new "Terminator" that played before this audio visual global event, and that he was competing with the image of Dr. Manhattan in the trailer for "Watchmen," which, unless that movie is capable of defeating this one in being the greatest ever, will be fundamentally disappointing (because the "Watchmen" trailer is, for some of us, the greatest not-the-actual-thing thing, ever, in all history, of humankind, ever.) And even more impressive, when you consider that Batman is the fifth or sixth lead in "The Dark Knight," which (we all didn't notice until we saw the movie) is a film with "Batman" not even remotely in its title.

Yes, this is a movie about Harvey Dent - played awfully by Tommy Lee Jones, and briefly by Billy Fucking Dee Williams, and now perfectly wonderfully endlessly by Aaron Eckhart - who says his own epitaph (which actually happens often in bad movies but here happens quitely in the greatest movie), "You either die a hero, or live long enough to become a villain." And it's also about Morgan Freeman, in a real role ("The Dark Knight" helps us all understand that "Wanted" is dogshit.) But wait, you're forgetting Gary Oldman, who frankly make you cry, with happiness, again, and again. And again. He's so good that you could call the movie Jim Gordon, and it would be the greatest crime sequel since French Connection II. Which it is. Except erase sequel, and crime, and underline greatest, in bold, with gold.

The Dark Knight opens up China to the west. (True.) The Dark Knight has a brief yet immortal scene in Hong Kong. The Dark Knight involves a Hong Kong controversy. Tangentially. Abstractly. It's conversation worthy. Every line in this movie is conversation worthy. There will be discussions about cadence. There will be agonizations over missed chances for The Sequel. (Spoiler alert - the Joker does not die. Spoiler alert - he will live forever.) "There Will be Blood" - and by the way, this movie is utterly that movie with superheroes. What I mean is that you feel the same way watching it. Horrified. Yet laughing, endlessly, horribly (because you're laughing at Armageddon), splendidly (because you laugh about the same jokes twice and thrice and whatever word rhymes with those two that means a billion million), and wonderfully (because this movie makes you believe in movies, and comic books films, and life after death, and fiction.)

The Dark Knight makes critics write the greatest reviews of their lifetimes. Go here. Read this. Read it out loud. Read it on the street. Read it until you memorize every word. Why haven't you seen it? What is going on in your unfortunate head? Why aren't you and I talking about The Dark Knight right now, together, you quoting your favorite line and me quoting mine (no doubt initially being words spoken by Heath Ledger, who is amazing, who is not dead, because he lives on, today, in theaters, not just everywhere but more everywhere than ever before.)

This movie solves problems. This movie examines modernity. This movie recreates situations recognizable from unenjoyable new broadcasts. This movie features news broadcasts. This movie involves Anthony Michael Hall, and Cillian Murphy, and the guy who played Zeus in "Friday." If I tell you he gives the best performance in the whole film, will you believe me? What if I tell you that he's only onscreen for maybe three minutes? And what if I tell you that that means that the same guy who played Prisoner #2 in the third Austin Powers and who voiced a role in that fucking 50 Cent shitfest game has now given the greatest role in the greatest film ever made?

The Dark Knight is it. The Dark Knight makes you cry. The Dark Knight makes you laugh. But only at dirty bad things. The Dark Knight ends perfectly. It does lots of other things perfectly, too. It can't help it. It's the greatest movie ever. Made. Conceived. Performed. Filmed. Edited. Scored (you will love the violins [I insist.]) Released. The Dark Knight is its own industry. The Dark Knight is its own country. The Dark Knight is itself. It's wonderful. It's memorable. It's a sequel. It's the "Chinatown" of superhero movies. It's the "Chinatown" of this decade. It's "Chinatown" with a Bat-cycle. It's "Chinatown." Forget it, Jake, this is Gotham City. Every movie that came before can't compare. Every movie that comes after will try to. They will all fail, and miserably. Because this is it. You can tell. Because you see it twice, and still want to see it. Again. Again. Again. Please.