The Dark Knight Review

 

When the sequel was announced, there was some hype for it. I was interested in watching it since it had the Joker on it. Mind you, I didn’t watch Batman Begins to realize that it was part of the plan. When the death of Heath Ledger popped up in the news, the hype started to pick up. After the movie came out, some students in my middle school became Batman fans and a few dyed their hair green. It was quite literally, the talk in the cafeteria. With that, The Dark Knight is one of the best sequels and one of the best Christopher Nolan films he has made. SPOILERS will appear in the review.

1.      Story

The film picks up where the last one left. The criminal underworld of Gotham is afraid of the Batman. Until an unknown called the Joker, starts to subvert the mob and test the limits of the dark knight. While that’s the main framing story, it’s probably the most complex in any comic book film. Due in large part that the Joker is, no pun intended, a wild card. Since Bruce believes that he is just a regular criminal, the Joker continues to defy his expectations. I’ll elaborate further on the character.

 The subplots involve Bruce Wayne believing that the new District Attorney Harvey Dent to be the new hero that Gotham deserves. There’s a scene where Harvey and Rachel are out for dinner. Rachel is now played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. Bruce appears with a date and starts to have dinner with his friend and Dent. Bruce talks but when Harvey speaks throughout, he thinks that he can be the successor to him in terms of delivering justice.

Amid all that, Harvey doesn’t like the fact that Jim Gordon has crooked cops working with him. I’ll elaborate more when I talk about the Joker. Speaking of.

2.      Joker

This character changed how comic book villains are done in film. Played by Heath Ledger, he is the most intimidating adversary and antagonist I have seen. His leitmotif is the most haunting composition in the film. The ending moments of the interrogation in the police department, where he tells Batman the location of Rachel and Dent, shows just how twisted he is. By giving the wrong location and sending Batman to rescue Harvey. The music piece appears when Harvey is pleading to Rachel, shows just how dirty the Joker is.

Like I mentioned earlier how he subverts the mob, he, as stated in the film, is all for chaos. He could care less about the money and literally burns it when he brings in the man who was keeping all of it in Hong Kong. He even tests the Batman. Everything the Joker does in terms of killing and assassination attempts, Batman introduces new ways that from his view are ways to stop him but are many red flags. Such as when Lucius Fox says that his sonar tech that he developed was being used to find where Joker is. He threatened to leave and want no part of the operation since he believed it was unethical.

Lastly, the villain changed Harvey. During the assassination attempts, Dent kidnaps one of the Joker’s henchman. We start to see the twisted side of Dent by playing chance on the henchman. It is even exacerbated when Harvey gets injured and the Joker visits him in the hospital. Triggering Harvey to be an opposite of the Joker, by having him be an opposite of chaos and being the one to restore order.

Overall, Heath Ledger’s Joker won him an academy award posthumously. He absolutely deserved it. There were attempts to recreate this interpretation such as in the animated series “Young Justice” but it just didn’t work. Years later, Joaquin Phoenix would win an academy for best actor in, well Joker. Heath’s interpretation of the antagonist was and is a zeitgeist in the Batman rogue’s gallery.

3.      2008, for better and worse.

When the film came out in 2008, another film would also come and altered the comic book genre. Iron Man came out of nowhere and no one would’ve anticipated what that film was leading to. I will always attest that in terms of comic book films, 2008 brought in change that will bring the genre to be taken seriously. The Dark Knight brought the genre to be considered legitimate and Iron Man began with the idea of an interconnected universe.

Now for the worse, I always guessed that Warner Bros. saw how successful Nolan’s trilogy was doing in terms of box office numbers and critical reception and took in the wrong lessons. Such as giving director Zack Snyder the keys to adapt Superman. The overall darkness approach that worked with Batman doesn’t apply to the Kryptonian. More so on DC’s interconnected universe which at the beginning had a surface area level of a brooding and dark tone. Someday I’ll review Man of Steel, for now let’s continue.

4.      Pros

With all that said, this is one of my favorite films. It never feels that is dragging or just slow, stuff keeps happening and its kinetic as hell. I love the new batsuit. Finally, Batman can move his neck. To put in perspective, the previous films from the late 80s through the 90s had the suit with no neck movement. Making Batman move like a tank and making the movement weird in fight scenes.

The copy that I have on Blu-Ray contained scenes that was filmed on IMAX cameras. The whole bank robbery and police escort chase successfully utilized the cameras. My favorite scene has to be the bank robbery. It’s a simple setup but I love how it builds and shows who the Joker is. As well as how he thinks. The fact that the Joker tells the robbers to kill the other robbers just shows how the villain could care less about them.

5.      Cons

Like any film, this one was not perfect. It’s shocking how The Dark Knight is beloved by a lot including myself, but I have some legitimate criticisms of it. First, I feel that most of Harvey scenes when he was Two-Face could have at least been saved for a sequel. I feel that the whole movie hinged on the Joker and when he was captured a second time, the film could at least gain some closure and cut to credits. With Two-Face, it feels like padding to squeeze out the last remaining plot thread.

The ending as well is where I have issues. After Batman saves Gordon’s young boy from Harvey, Batman tells Gordon that the public can’t know what Harvey became. That everything that had happened to the city was because of the Batman. I never really understood why he went with that thinking. I mean, it would be one thing to tell the public that Harvey was corrupted by the Joker. Or that everything that had happened was just the Joker. I feel that it could’ve been rewritten or thought out more clearly.

6.      Overall

So, this movie is rightfully one of the best sequels in cinema. It’s hard to be a sequel with expectations to be bigger and better than the first one. I think since there wasn’t any lofty hopes with this one that when it came out, it was beloved on opening night. Christopher Nolan and screenwriter David Goyer changed a genre that has warranted to be taken seriously. Without a doubt, this is one of the best Batman movies of all time.

The Dark Knight gets a Five out of Five.