Okay. I could easily do a 30 second review of The Dark Knight, and look like this: See this movie. If you already have, see it again. If you want more information, keep reading…but there will be spoilers. It’s inevitable.

The Dark Knight is a movie written from source material that is a “comic book.” To call this a comic book film would be a gross negligence. People far and wide who have seen this film are hailing it as a triumph in cinematography, acting (!!), direction, special effects, and indeed mood. It would be impossible to describe the actions of each of the hundreds of people involved in this film’s creation, so I’m going to limit myself to just one. The one who, I believe, claimed this movie as his own, breaking open the comic book cum movie paradigm that had become stagnant: Heath Ledger.

I think the defining moment for his performance was actually, I learned later, completely unscripted. When the Joker is captured by the Gotham police after a clever ruse, he’s mere feet away from Lt. Jim Gordon when the mayor (aside: this actor also played Bat Manuel in the tragically short-lived live action TV show, The Tick) promoted him to Commissioner. The room erupts in applause, though obviously dimmed by the reason for the promotion–the previous Commissioner had been horrifically poisoned by The Joker.

Camera scans the crowd, focuses on The Joker, no joy in his eyes, a smile plastered on his face, clapping with arms stretched directly in front of him. You could taste the malice.

Turns out this clapping was unscripted. Nolan murmured to his camera crew to keep filming, to hone in on the Joker. Ledger knew this character. Ledger created–nay, lived this character. Locked himself in his apartment for a full month, wrote a daily diary of the Joker’s thoughts, created an internal dialog that I could sense was being plumbed for each and every line. This is character acting at its peak, in beauty, in tragedy, and in creativity.

The Joker that stared at the audience liked a personal history that was multiple choice–why pick one event when you can select from thousands at any given time? There was no background for this character, no redeeming quality, no action that a sane person would even contemplate. This was malice, this was psychosis, at its most pure. This was the Joker that actually felt like a villain. Not a wise-cracking mob boss, but a hired hand unleashed by a master who never understood him. This was insanity, spread liberally like pancake makeup on high school actors. This is a legacy for Heath Ledger that outstrips all his previous work, though honestly that doesn’t say a great deal. I’ve seen other films of his, and I was, frankly, unimpressed.

Which is why I went into this film with hesitation. I liked Nicholson’s portrayal of the campy comics of old in the original 1989 Batman with Michael Keaton. That year, in fact, I dressed up as that Joker for Halloween. Kids could enjoy this villain because he was dressed funny, made puns, told poetry, and laughed a lot. Yeah, he killed, but he did so in as amusing a way as possible. This Joker was altogether different. Did he cut his mouth into that forced “smile” or was it his father? Who was he 5 years before? Is his existence owed solely to Batman’s push against the seedy underbelly of Gotham, or was insanity always bubbling there, just waiting for any spark to push it into a full boil?

This film disturbs. It captivates. It instills a need for heroes. And that’s what comic book movies are supposed to do. We need superheroes because life throws supervillains at us, in the form of oppressive governments, frightening global catastrophes, economic depression. These are things the common man cannot take on alone. We need heroes because they can do what we cannot: Endure.