Nearly 20 years after Tim Burton reinvented Batman for a new generation of comic book fans comes The Dark Knight, directed by Christopher Nolan and co-written by Nolan and his brother Jonathan. While the title sounds reminiscent of Frank Miller's groundbreaking mini-series "The Dark Knight", it has more in common with a Scorsese film than with Sin City or 300, projects that are distinctively Frank Miller. It's not merely Batman, a visual celebration of gothic superhero overtones--it's a gangster flick featuring Batman as one of the many colorful and morally questionable characters. Tim Burton's original Batman broke the rules and made Batman a murderer, but it was to no great discovery. The film followed the revenge-mentality of the greedy 1980s decade. Nolan's latest flick doesn't break the rules outright but clouds up our moral compass, filling in shades of gray, gloomy nightfall into what should be a black and white page.

The Dark Knight is in fact very dark, and may thrill or disturb viewers with its subject matter, depending on how much they love the source material. Comic fans that have enjoyed the ambiguity of Gotham City for decades thanks to the works of Dennis O'Neil, Alan Moore, Frank Miller and Grant Morrison will love the film and consider it even better than Nolan's first effort Batman Begins. However, fans of the 1960's series, or even newly interested Bat-fans that have been won over by the Crayola-colored brilliance of Burton's original reinvention (not to mention Joel Schumacher's ode to camp) may find the film unsettling. The broad audience may not be used to seeing Goodfellas in Gotham, but to comic book fans this respectability (seeing the paranormal merged with the harshest of realities) is long overdue.

There is much happening in Gotham City this time around, with the arrival of the new crime boss The Joker, played by the late Heath Ledger. The zigzagging plot also involves new district attorney Harvey Dent, played by Aaron Eckhart, and the returning character of Rachel Dawes, now recast with Maggie Gyllenhaal. Comic book fans are wise to why Harvey Dent has been brought in, and that revelation is the least surprising in a movie full of false alarms, red herrings and out-of-nowhere plot twists. At last, director Christopher Nolan is a creative mind that respects the origin of the Batman mythology. You can tell because he fuels this picture with adrenaline usually reserved for James Bond type epics, and a manic intensity among his characters usually found in independent movies.

In my not-so-humble opinion, Nolan is one of the best directors working in the industry, and would be making Oscar winners if he weren't so in love with the Batman continuity and his stellar cast of theatrical specimens. How awesome would it be to order Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine to deliver absurd lines about bats, anyway? Nolan crafts every shot in The Dark Knight perfectly, the best cinematography and storyboarding that we have ever seen in a comic book movie, short of Frank Miller's own experimentations. Editing is fast paced and explosions are rampant and may continue to cause vertigo, seizures and dizziness. This is Batman: The Ride, somehow captured on camera.

Performances in the film vary between transcendent and hammy. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine continue to add first-rate class to a superhero flick. Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent is easily the second best performance in the film, at times rivaling the first. Eckhart manages to bring the misguided earnestness to the role that he brought to Thank You for Smoking. Don't blame Tommy Lee Jones for dumbing down Dent's character in Batman Forever. Schumacher is a tyrant when it comes to creating that artificial flash; the type of in-your-face gloss that permeated the 1990s and now seems very dated. Eckhart's Harvey Dent is a masterful performance, even if the third act seems rushed.

Heath Ledger plays the Joker unpredictably, as I predicted, and steals the show. This is the first Joker that has truly filled the audience with dread. The Joker's laugher is an after-thought--a criminally insane reaction to the vilest deeds committed against innocent people. Ledger presents his Joker interpretation as a media-crazed anarchist, just as in love with shooting snuff films as Jack Nicholson's Joker was in love with delivering long-winded soliloquies on television. What makes the Joker truly intimidating in this film is his convergent genius, as opposed to Nicholson's arbitrary madness, a quality only hinted at in the comics and rarely seen on film. History tells us that a man's genius often times can bring out the most heartless display of human behavior. What a reassurance to us, to know that we are normal citizens, still capable of feeling some compassion!

As much as I will praise this film at year's end, I must concede that there are some weak performances. Oddly enough, Christian Bale is fantastic as Bruce Wayne but still occasionally fumbles Batman's lines, making bizarre characterization statements that sound like Clint Eastwood impersonating Al Pacino. But Batman can be forgiven for being a bit of a stick-in-the-mud. The weakest link in the picture is Maggie Gyllenhaal, who should be a candidate for one of the worst performances of the year. Admittedly, the awful characterization of Rachel Dawes is not Gyllenhaal's fault entirely. She was terribly miscast in a glamorous and feisty role that Katie Holmes understood perfectly. Just witness the chemistry Katie Holmes and Aaron Eckhart had in Thank You For Smoking, and think of the dynamic that could have been. While I'm not exactly calling Katie Holmes one of her generation's best, even I can concede that she brought something memorable, if cloying, to Batman Begins. In contrast, Gyllenhaal simply sleepwalks through the picture, bringing a mousy subtlety to the role that is mostly lost on us. I would say that Gyllenhaal's interpretation of Rachel was simply to "look beautiful" while others fight. But honestly, Gyllenhaal is not a "beautiful face." She has a cute face and is a real woman whose charms exceed the superficiality of plastic perfection. Gyllenhaal brings little beauty and little strength to a role that cried for more passion and sexuality.

Nevertheless, these are all little quibbles about a solid movie. The Dark Knight is the best traditional good vs. evil comic book film ever made, even if some independent features have come closer to capturing the definitive comic book essence. Be prepared though--you've never seen a Gotham City so dark like Nolan has created it, a world in which a fallen Dark Knight is the only character left to root for. Grade: A