sLauGHteR iS ThE bESt MedICInE

Since everybody and his dog seems to be throwing in his two-cents worth about The Dark Knight, I figured I should too. (Heaven forbid society think me uncool for not bouncing onto the Batwagon!)

In all seriousness, I, unlike the rest of the watching world apparently, don't think the Joker is the best thing since bread came sliced, or that the sun shone out of Heath Ledger's now maggoty ass.

Don't get me wrong. He was brilliant. Oh well, since I'm going that far, I might as well go the full monty. He was (lets say it in a single breath now!) amazingmarvellousawesometremendousfantasticmesmerisingbrilliantastoundingbreathtakingterrific.

He is just Evil for the sake of being Evil, with no thought for profit or gain, no quarter given to mercy or kindness and revels in death, destruction and chaos.

He's the kind of personable chap even the Lucifer himself wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. He makes Emperor Palpatine, Count Dracula and Hannibal Lecter look like Larry, Curly and Moe. He'd give Charles Manson and Ted Bundy the willies.

In short, he is one of the greatest villains in cinematic history. All that talk about a posthumous Oscar really is warranted and not just the work of a PR machine on overdrive.

But for me, the movie can be summed up in two words: Harvey Dent.

While Ledger's portrayal of the clown prince of crime is mesmerising in its intensity, Eckhart's depiction of Gotham's white knight is a study in character development.

He brings out the best in the the idealistic District Attorney out to clean Gotham's crime riddled streets and imbues the character with moral strength, unquenchable fortitude, immense courage and the dogged determination to see good triumph over evil.

And then the Joker blows his world to bits.

When Dent becomes Two-Face, you don't hate him. You weep for him. You weep for all that he was and all that he has become.

You weep because you see that every evil, every vile cruelty is not so much an act of wickedness but a cry of pain, a cry of misery and a cry to be put out of his suffering.

Despite the trail of murderous destruction that he wreaks, despite the horrifying choices he makes and despite the terrible things he does, Two-Face is still one of the most sympathetic villains I have come across.

If Ledger were to not get the posthumous Oscar he is worthy of, I would choose Eckhart as the man to win it over him.

Gary Oldman more than does justice to the role of James Gordon, while Eric Roberts, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman all acquit themselves reasonably well too.

Sadly, Christian Bale himself was the most disappointing member of the cast (lets leave out Gyllenhall - the only reason she's even in the movie is to facilitate Dent's transformation). Batman is arguably the most complex and intriguing of all comicdom's caped crusaders, but in The Dark Knight, he is a strangely one-dimensional cardboard cutout.

Is it because he is so completely eclipsed by the baddies? I don't know.

What I do know is that while so much effort was put into making the action scenes spectacular and in giving Batman more cool gadgets, relatively little was put into highlighting his inner turmoil and the conflict raging underneath the cowl.

For example, while he could, without a qualm, let Ras Al Ghoul die a fiery death in Batman Begins, he does not kill the Joker - a more dangerous and devious villain. While we all know that Batsy's code is to not kill, more could have been done to explain the motivations behind this.

When Joker threatens to kill one person every night unless the Bat reveals his true identity, we see a very muted response to what must have surely been a mind-warping conundrum.

His reaction to (SPOILER ALERT!!!!!) Rachel Dawes' death is equally muted and unimposing. I mean, this is the same man who, having seen his parents gunned down, dresses up as a winged mammal and flits from roof to roof in response. You'd at least expect him to tear off a couple of Joker's limbs for blowing the love of his life to kingdom come, wouldn't you?

Yet, even with these inadequacies The Dark Knight is a spellbinding tale. It is not one painted in shades of black, white or even gray.

Rather it is splashed with the bright purple of the Joker's suit, the toxic green of his hair and the blood red of his grinning maw. It is a painted with the brittle brush strokes of Two-Face's burnt and deformed face.

And it is accompanied by a duet of manical laughter and anguished howls.