An unstoppable force meets an immovable object

He makes Jack Nicholson's Joker look like a birthday clown.

It was a truly demented, terrifying and ghastly portrayal of the character, like some avatar of pure, distilled, meaningless hate. I actually found parts of his performance difficult to watch because it was so frightening. This is a villain who refuses to be psychologized- there is no method to his madness, no rhyme and even less reason for his cruelty, because as Alfred cleverly intuits, he's someone who just "wants to watch the world burn..."

But the thing is, for all the brilliance of Heath Ledger's take on The Joker, I think the media has overlooked the movie's other inspired performance- Aaron Eckhart's. Harvey's bleak descent into Two-Face was interminably sad because you were watching it unfold right before you, as Jude always says, like watching a car crash in slow motion. Seeing the hopeful righteousness give way to ultimate vengeance and anger was like witnessing another piece of of Gotham's continued decay. True, the Joker's failed "social experiment" with the two ferries suggested some hope for the crumbling metropolis, but that he managed to corrupt its shining star casts a pall over whatever salvation Gotham might have hoped for.

At the end of the day, unlike Batman Begins where the focus was more on the seething underbelly of Gotham and the sordid human brokenness of the city, The Dark Knight is about its citizens and what makes them fall apart within. Whether its a senseless desire for mayhem and destruction, the loss of a loved one, or a realization that to be a city's savior is to be its enemy, the movie pushes the boundaries what we expect of and need from our heroes and villains, questions the various shades of gray that separate good and evil, and may have forever redefined what a great comic-book movie is from now on.

I don’t want to kill you. What would I do without you? You complete me... You just couldn't let me go, could you? I guess this is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You are truly incorruptible, aren't you? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of righteousness . . . and I won't kill you because you're too damn fun. We're going to do this forever.
- The Joker to Batman, The Dark Knight

[For an exceptionally good article on the various incarnations of Batman and how the latest movie matches up, see this Salon piece.]