"The Dark Knight"
Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman

Rated: PG-13 (for violence and intensity)

Running time: 152 minutes

Best suited for: Batman fanatics

Least suited for: those clueless to the lore, those venturing into Batmania for the first time, if only in homage to the late Heath Ledger

It's been a long, rocky road since Adam West's Batman. In the 40 years since his first buffoonish televised appearance, the famed crimefighter has transmogrified from the Woody Allen of comic book lore to its Hamlet.

Superman may be the white knight of virtue and justice, but Batman's the edgy alter-ego, stopping crime not because it's the right thing to do (and fun when you're bulletproof) but because of an obsessive compulsion that eats at him like a cancer. One can almost plumb the depths of cultural despair by the mood of the Caped Crusader.

If that is indeed true, then buckle up, America, because it's going to be a bumpy ride.

"Why so serious?" asks Batman's nemesis, the Joker. One only has to look at the psychopathic greasepaint smearing the late (and likely now iconic) Heath Ledger and ponder the same question. Why so serious? Why has the comic book legend evolved from foiling klutzy bank robberies to savior of a city plagued by crime?

After the franchise reached into the absurd (in 1997's "Batman and Robin"), director Christopher Nolan gambled that we were ready for a darker, more tortured superhero. Nolan's superb "Batman Begins" (2005) flushed away any remnants of cartoonish veneer and bathed Batman (Christian Bale, also new to the franchise) in a more austere, sullen aura. It also gave billionaire Bruce Wayne far more complexity, troubled beyond even therapeutic intervention. Living in a Gotham as bleak and desperate as any crumbling ghetto, he is the solitary hope for justice.

Lacking the traditional superpowers of Superman or Spider-Man, he overcompensates by throwing lots and lots of money into R&D. He can't leap over buildings or spit webs, so his corporatesponsored accomplices devise Batmobiles and bulletproof armor, an aerodynamic cape and gizmos for seemingly every criminal occasion.

In "The Dark Knight," Bale reprises his role. Okay, one might consider philosophic barroom rhetoric- and the inevitable brawl- comparing the attributes of Bale's characterization and Michael Keaton's (the original cinematic Batman).

Keaton, for my money, conveyed Wayne's edgy neuroticism but maintained the ambiance of Batman as misunderstood fictional character that 9yearold boys could peruse under the covers at night. Keaton's Joker- and that would be Jack Nicholson- was pompously, deliciously malevolent, but one didn't go home fearful of nightmares.

There's nothing remotely joyful (oh, how ironic) about Ledger's interpretation. Taken out of context, out of Gotham, his Joker is little different than Rob Zombie's schizophrenic Captain Spaulding. Not very many prepubescent boys are thinking of him at night with the lights off.

But is "The Dark Knight" a worthy adventure? Is it, as I heard both before and after viewing the film, "the best comic book film ever made"?

Well, yes and no. It depends on one's standard of superheroes. It's a harrowing, utterly watchable film, but chaotic in its pacing, in its numerous subplots and nuances. One encounters an adrenaline-charged rush of imagery as good and evil relentlessly clash. If there's a flaw at play here, it's the lack of breathing room- very little reaction time as egos collide and people die and Batman broods, pondering his fate.

It's very much two films in one (perhaps even three films)- the Joker's story as well as Batman's, and also the tale of Gotham City's new district attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), who's stolen Bruce Wayne's girlfriend (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and much of the crimefighting limelight. Inevitability swirls around the three men in a cyclonic howl, each a puzzle piece in the other's psyche. Yeah, it's a pretty good ride, but don't blink twice.

If you're not a fan of Batman, this isn't the place to begin. Rent "Batman Begins" first. "The Dark Knight" delivers an emotionally tormented superhero and a villain more horrific than any comic book thriller that I recollect. One can understand the rumors of Ledger's death- that his lethal, accidental combination of sleeping and antianxiety pills resulted, at least in part, from the stress of his performance (as reported in The Sydney Morning Herald).

It's this kind of tragic melodrama that fuels Hollywood, that no doubt will buoy the film and, I suspect, will win Ledger a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar. But how blurred is that line between truth and fiction? When our superheroes dare to cross into our own tortured reality, when our comic book characters become so serious as to utterly lose any trace of their "comic" roots, one wonders how sane the framework of our reality might really be.