The Dark Knight Review
So I just watched The Dark Knight again for the 3rd or so time. I can't say that watching it again and again once more changed any opinions that I already had, but in fact reassured them. Christopher Nolan is able to prove once again with movies like Inception and this that he is one of the best active directors working today.
The Dark Knight is all about Batman, and is technically classified as a superhero movie. Make no mistake though, this movie brings out elements that make the movie more enjoyable even if you know nothing about Batman. Essentially, this movie is about Batman trying to rid Gotham city of crime, and finally finds a man named Harvey Dent (played by Aaron Eckhart) that he wants to pass the justice dealing too after partnering up temporarily to investigate the Joker and his attacks on Gotham. This movie is mostly about Batman's struggles dealing with The Joker taking reign over the underworld mob while at the same time keeping Harvey Dent close so he can try to turn him in to a hero for Gotham with a face. This movie is very dark, and sets a new bar for superhero movies, and just movies in general. First of all, the performances were all great in this movie. Christian Bale was a stubborn and intriguing character, and Gary Oldman played James Gordon well. The best performance in the entire movie, and what made the movie as good as it was, was Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker, but I'll get to that later.
I was wowed by how Christopher Nolan completely altered a genre of movie forever with this one movie. I feel like The Dark Knight is one of those movies that can appeal to people that have no interest in anything superhero related, because this movie sort of transcends genres between a superhero movie and a crime/thriller/drama movie. In this film, Christopher Nolan makes every small detail in the movie matter with his really creative story telling. The pacing in this movie is very fast, but it still never feels rushed and gives you some time to understand characters and their motivations, so that there's actually some substance and meaning to the plot. I also have to give credit to the amazing practical effects used in this film. Every time Nolan had a chance to use a practical effect rather than CGI, he took it. There was only one or two instances that were obviously CGI, as they would be too dangerous to be a practical effect. It's good to know that Nolan is dedicated to making the movie as genuine as possible by using real effects.
Batman Begins was more of an origin story than anything, and I'm glad they saved his arch nemesis for the 2nd installment. The Joker. The pinnacle of this movie was any scene involving Heath Ledger. I just couldn't get enough of his character. He by far knocked it out of the park, and as far as I'm concerned gave the best performance of the entire movie. His dedication to the role is what really sold the character. He had apparently locked himself in a hotel room for 30 days to prepare for his role. Everything about him is deliberate, his posture, his talk and the way he pauses dramatically, the way he licks his lips every couple of seconds frantically and occasionally gives himself facial tics, giving him an even more demented look. Besides his look, everything else he does in the movie is deliberate, and how he delivers his dialogue and performs for certain scenes. What I love the most about the Joker is how he is presented in the movie. You see, The Joker is meant to be a timeless villain that could act the same way in any given time or place. In this movie, we get a slightly more modernized Joker. Not too modern, like the awful looking Jared Leto with tattoos all over his body and silver plated teeth. This Joker feels like an urban Joker, only updated slightly. Props to the makeup artists, because the scars on the Joker's face make him that much cooler. They didn't really delve in to the backstory at all of the Joker, which is fine because he is meant to be perceived as a mysterious figure. Christopher Nolan was apparently very lenient with the script for Ledger, and a lot of great moments in the movie were improvisations. The Joker's personality is also so interesting. His character is obviously psychotic, but he always gives his viewpoint and reasoning and justification for his crimes. He acts like a non-crazy person would doing extremely crazy things, which made his performance scarily realistic. He also provided a lot of quotable lines and interesting social commentaries that made the fictional world more believable. This was honestly one of the best performances I've seen in a movie, period.
One thing that I really don't see in any other superhero movies that I really enjoyed in this one was a lot of intense scenes. There were a lot of edge-of-seat moments, and I was surprised how many of those moments were in the movie. The score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard was also great. In a lot of great action scenes the music would really add to the experience. The sound editing in the movie was also great, some of the intense scenes kept rising in pitch until it became a shrill screech that made these scenes even more gripping. There weren't really any too complicated fight scenes, but they were still entertaining for the most part. They do sometimes feel as though Batman is untouchable and there's not enough sense of danger. For example, (a tiny spoiler but nothing big) in one scene at the beginning of the movie, Batman fights a couple of ferocious dogs, and they bite through his armor. He then complains about it to his butler, and his suit gets upgraded and whatever. Then near the end Batman encounters more dogs, and you can't really expect anything else besides Batman to win the fight, since they literally tell you in the movie that his new suit can't be bitten through by dogs, so it kind of ruins any chance of feeling worried for Batman.
The build up in the movie was great, but the ending didn't end when I thought it would. It looked as though it was about to wrap up on a climactic note, but then there was this inconvenient plot hole that the story needed to cover before the movie ended, so there was an extra ten minutes of the movie that kind of seeped the adrenaline out of the climax, so that the ending wouldn't be as impactful as it would if they ended it earlier and managed to slip in the plot hole before the climax. I did like how the movie ended with a satisfactory ending, that didn't obviously set up a sequel, which kind of irks me in most superhero movies.
Overall, amazing performances, with an even more outstanding performance from Heath Ledger. Heath Ledger's performance was one to which I can't really compare to. Definitely one of the better and less cliché superhero movies, and possibly the best.
+ The Joker - Ending could have been cleaned up a little bit
+ Great practical effects - Fight scenes needed more sense of danger
+All acting great
9.1/10
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