Heath Ledger: Black carpet replaces red for Dark Knight's world premiere

* Gwladys Fouché and agencies
* guardian.co.uk,
* Tuesday July 15 2008 17:49 BST

The absence of Heath Ledger dominated The Dark Knight's world premiere in New York last night, amid increased speculation that his performance as the Joker could be up for an Oscar next February.

The traditional red carpet was black in the late actor's honour, while his co-stars, including Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman and Maggie Gyllenhaal, wore dark-coloured outfits.

While the cast was posing for photographers outside the IMAX cinema, Ledger's relatives quietly slipped into the venue. All the time crowds of fans thronged the theatre on Manhattan's 68th street, to the point where they overflowed on Broadway and shut down traffic over one block during rush hour.

Inside the cinema, an orchestra performed extracts from the film's score, complete with a light show featuring a Batman signal. The performance replaced the traditional introduction by the cast and crew - perhaps, wondered Variety, to spare "some poor soul the task of a curtain speech" given Ledger's death. Upon leaving the screening, Ledger's father Kim responded to questions about how he felt about attending by simply giving a thumbs-up.

For The Hollywood Reporter, the premiere was the occasion for "a quiet, backdoor test of the movie's awards potential, especially for Heath Ledger," noting that studio executives may have got what they hoped for as "there were several midscreening ovations for the late actor".

Meanwhile, early reviews are broadly enthusiastic. Entertainment Weekly reckons The Dark Knight is a "labyrinthine and exciting sequel to Batman Begins" [the last Batman film, also helmed by British director Christopher Nolan]. "The movie exudes a predatory glamour that makes the comic-book films that have come before it look all the more like kid stuff," writes Owen Gleiberman, noting that Ledger offers a "mesmerizing, scary-funny performance" and Bale "once again captivates as the haunted caped crusader".

Associated Press' Christy Lemire writes that The Dark Knight is "an epic that will leave you staggering from the theater (sic), stunned by its scope and complexity". "Ambitious, explosive set pieces share screen time with meaty debates about good vs evil and the nature of - and need for - a hero," says Lemire, adding that "there's nothing cartoony about [Ledger's] Joker. Ledger wrested the role from previous performers Cesar Romero and Jack Nicholson and reinvented it completely."

Finally, Peter Travers in Rolling Stone reaches for the superlatives, rating the movie 3.5 stars out of four. The Dark Knight is an "absolute stunner", Ledger is "mad-crazy-blazing brilliant as the Joker", Bale evokes "Al Pacino in The Godfather II in his delusion and desolation". In conclusion, he gushes that "the haunting and visionary Dark Knight soars on the wings of untamed imagination".