It is a dark and stormy 'Knight'

Everything you've heard about "The Dark Knight" is true.

A visionary motion picture that torches the rule book on superhero movies and redefines the genre, Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" combines the color-bled texture of vintage 1940s film noir with the tough, moral conflicts of a classic American western. Where standard action movies jump from one staged set piece to the next, "The Dark Knight" leaps from one ethical dilemma to another with insane, unpredictable action sequences crammed in between.

Then it has Heath Ledger.

Even before the young actor died of an accidental drug overdose in January, his cutting-edge performance as Batman's most infamous super villain, the Joker, was already on the way to becoming Hollywood lore. With his makeup resembling a watercolor clown portrait left out in the rain, and his voice tightened into an eerie, mocking cackle, Ledger's Joker is a true Hollywood original that owes nothing to Jack Nicholson's buffoonish Joker or Caesar Romero's cartoony TV take on the character.

Having established the origin of the Caped Crusader in 2005's commendable "Batman Begins," Nolan - co-writing the screenplay with his brother Jonathan - shows how the crime business has taken a hit since Batman soared into town, helping dedicated lawman Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) put away evildoers.

Gangsters such as Salvatore Maroni (Eric Roberts) don't like it. So when a knife-wielding psychotic with stringy hair and a faded purple coat shows up, promising to kill the Batman, the mobsters are all ears. Those who aren't risk losing their eyes.

Billionaire Bruce Wayne (again played by square-jawed, straight-laced Christian Bale) confesses to his trusted butler Alfred (Michael Caine, reprising the role) he longs for the time when Gotham City no longer needs Batman. That might just happen with new, idealistic D.A. Harvey Dent.

Dent, played with unusual sincerity by Aaron Eckhart, wants to clean up Gotham. He convinces Gordon to let him meet and join forces with the Dark Knight. Wayne wants to believe in Dent, even though he has taken up with his former girlfriend, assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, a definite upgrade from "Batman Begins" star Katie Holmes).

Things look promising for the forces of law and order. But nobody anticipates the sheer power and unrelenting evil of the Joker as he wages a war for the city's soul, a bloody, violent campaign designed to bring out the worst in people and prove to Batman that Gothamites - read: humanity - don't deserve a hero when they are so fickle and inherently bad.

To that end, the Joker concocts a fiendish test, one that smacks a little of "Saw." The joker rigs bombs aboard two ferry boats, one filled with law-abiding citizens, the other with criminals. Each boat gets a triggering device. If one boat doesn't blow the other up by midnight, the Joker will destroy both vessels. What will happen next?

Nolan's "Dark Knight" constantly keeps us off-balance and fills us with breathless anticipation for the next stunning turn-of-events. Ask yourself this: How long has it been since you've seen a movie like that?

The action blasts forth in a Gotham City far different from the dreamlike German Expressionistic setting of Tim Burton's "Batman" films. Here, a macho Chicago stars as Batman's hometown. It's a vast, claustrophobic cityscape crammed with urban grit and imposing towers of steel and glass, all the better for distancing "Dark Knight" from previous takes on the Batman tale. (Local critics saw "Dark Knight" in its IMAX format. Six segments were actually shot in that format, which adds greater visual impact.)

"Dark Knight" breaks from the usual hero-vs.-villain in comic book narratives and becomes more of an ensemble piece, with extended subplots involving Gordon, Dent and Dawes, although Batman's moral compass, Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), remains an enigma.

The Joker also gets no background sketch, save for the story of how his father slit his cheeks with a razor when he was a child, punishment for looking sad after his dad killed his mom.

This movie can get really creepy.

And if Bales' tough-guy Batman voice sounds a little like a P.O.-ed Clint Eastwood, that's OK. Ledger gets to be the personality kid in "The Dark Knight," and his performance is so vibrant, immediate and real, for 152 lightning-fast minutes, you may forget he's dead.

"The Dark Knight"

Rating: 4 stars

Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Directed by: Christopher Nolan.

Other: A Warner Bros. release. Rated PG-13 (violence) 152 minutes.

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