Faith Central: Is Batman religious?

For a superhero Batman doesn’t have much fun. The gadgets, the underground cave, the superb car that transforms itself into an armoured tank and a turbo motorcycle - all of this counts for nothing because he is such a misery, torn between good and bad, his day incarnation as the suave playboy Bruce Wayne set against his caped-crusader alter ego.

Wayne/Batman doesn’t know who or what he’s supposed to be, what his responsibilities are and where he should take his frustrated love for the gorgeous Rachel Dawes.

Times Archive, 1966: In defence of Batman

Not a word of complaint was received from the police

• Batman sticks to letter of the law

• Batman's £3m. U.S. success, 1966

Heath Ledger tipped for Oscar

Black carpet rolled out and talk of a posthumous Oscar at the unveiling of Heath Ledger film The Dark Knight

• The Dark Knight: the first review

• Heath Ledger: The Times obituary

• Heath Ledger died from accidental overdose of prescription drugs, autopsy concludes

Related Internet Links

• Dark Knight trailer

• Dark Knight featurette

• Sky News special report

BACKGROUND

• Final farewell to Heath Ledger

• Batman Begins

• Who is the best big-screen comic book hero?

Related Internet Links

• 10 things that make Dark Knight the best Batman ever

• Interview: Batman's Special Effects wizard

• Batman Begins: Blu-ray competition

Related Links

• Heath Ledger tipped for Oscar

• Recession welcome to cinemas

Multimedia

• The latest Batman movie

The title of this new Batman is revealing: he can swoop over the city all he likes, but he gets no pleasure from meting out justice, or playing the big guy. This is one gloomy superhero whose navel gazing is accentuated by his glottal, laryngitis-like growl.

The genius of The Dark Knight is that Christopher Nolan, the film’s director, producer and co-writer (with brother Jonathan) has not only produced a stunning, amazing comic book movie, but also one with an intellectual heart and a tough, unresolved message at its end. Nolan, who directed the last Bat-movie (Batman Begins in 2005), has a masterful grip on his hero.

The Dark Knight is 152 minutes long, but is transfixing and all-enveloping, rather than arduous. Buses crash, hospitals are blown up, car chases are conducted at a shocking velocity, the epic design of the film is a character in its own right - but there, right at the heart, lies the question of what Batman is for, and whether his presence brings more danger than it does safety. Whose responsibility is it to preside over justice? This is never laboured or pontificated over, as in some Batman films. It is there, rightly and naturally, behind everything he does, behind every fight, every confrontation, every life-or-death decision.

The talking point thus far has been Heath Ledger as The Joker. Will the performance accord him a posthumous Oscar? Is it odd to watch the actor? No, because he delivers a career-defining performance. With his face a peeling façade of clown paint and his mouth a blurred slash, The Joker is the embodiment of anarchy and antiorder. He is the hero’s mirror image: the world thinks they are freaks. They need each other.

Ledger is so terrifying and unpredictable that his very presence on screen makes you horribly nervous – the atrocities he visits on his victims are bloody and vile-minded, and when he arrives at a party at the Wayne penthouse you feel sick as he observes the guests. He preys on our fear and sense of violation; what can Batman do to save us from that?

Ghoulish observation of Ledger shouldn’t obscure the brilliance of the other performances, notably Aaron Eckhart as the avenging prosecutor Harvey Dent. Dent, and his terrible fate, is the moral core of the film. Like Batman, he journeys plausibly from the light side to the dark.

Christian Bale as Batman is at his most emotional when wearing a mask: he loves the kit, but you sense he might want to be a smirking playboy after all and leave baddie-catching to the likes of Dent.

The Dark Knight will stun and surprise, delight and terrify, and it won’t be the special effects, gizmos and bat-heroics that will keep you pinned to your seat, but the moral force of the script and an ending that takes our hero, unbelievably and brilliantly, to even darker realms.

The Dark Knight goes on general release on July 25.

Editor's choice

• Harry Potter to overtake James Bond as biggest franchise ever
• The 50 Best Movie Villains
• The 15 golden rules of theatre etiquette