Dark Knight, redux.

Monday, July 21, 2008 | 1:44 PM

I'm still haven't seen "The Dark Knight," which recent reporting indicates made approximately $7.3 jillion this past weekend, but I almost don't feel the need to when there's been enough coverage and analysis of the film, its director and its talented, deceased star to equal a dozen volumes of "Crime and Punishment." Some that have caught my eye:

Esquire is rerunning Lisa Taddeo's bizarre and somewhat grotesque piece of professional fan fiction that pulls together details from and speculation on the last days of Heath Ledger. Fortunately, they also have Mike D'Angelo on Christopher Nolan:

The thing about Christopher Nolan (who's as much British as American -- but sue me, so was Hitchcock) is that he doesn't clonk you over the head with his genius. While he's become more visually sophisticated over the course of his short career, he still has no use for the look-at-me camera moves. Nor does he seem to care whether people notice that his clever, gimmicky narratives conceal deep and unsettling questions about human nature. Nolan's films are casually profound -- like watching somebody bunt the ball out of the park.

Bill Gibron at PopMatters writes that "it turns out that Batman's biggest enemy - and by indirect linkage, the biggest bane of fanboy existence - are the 12 journalists (and holding) who gave The Dark Knight a bad review." He goes on to tie those much-abused critics to the recent commenter debate. Meanwhile, Choire Sicha at Radar goes beyond parody into uncharted territory in his review, and Reverse Shot's robbiefreeling brings the pain:

When asked about the success of the latest film in the franchise which transformed him from a mediocre, strictly technical indie actor to a mediocre, strictly technical Hollywood star, reclusive Christian Bale responded in a gruff, gravely, very masculine voice not unlike that of the muppet Dr. Teeth, "I think moviegoers were just really hungry for something that would challenge their preconceived notions of good and evil, right and wrong, all that stuff; but they prefer to have that message delivered by a comic book superhero that they've admired since they were children."

Jeff Dawson at the London Times asks "Holy terror! Has the new Batman flick plundered its plot from 9/11?" Elsewhere, Dave Kehr wonders "Is the Dark Knight just George Bush with a better outfit, demanding that he be allowed all of the available 'tools' to combat terrorism, even if they include torture and eavesdropping?"

[Photo: "The Dark Knight," Warner Bros. Pictures, 2008]

+ The Last Days of Heath Ledger (Esquire)
+ Is Christopher Nolan the Greatest Director Alive? (Esquire)
+ Gotham's Most Wanted (PopMatters)
+ The Dark Knight Rocks So Hard, OMG (Radar)
+ In the Absence of Serious American Drama, A New Movie About Batman Captures the Heart of a Nation (Reverse Shot)
+ Has the new Batman plundered its plot from 9/11? (London Times)
+ The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008) (DaveKehr.com)