The Dark Knight (2008)

The most anticipated film of the year is finally here, and to call it a success would only be an understatement. Following the huge success of the revival of the classic comic series with Batman Begins, fans have been waiting impatiently for three years for the arrival of a film that promised to be bigger and better than any other comic book adaptation before it. Obviously director Christopher Nolan succeeded in this as The Dark Knight has toppled more box office records in its opening day alone than any other film in history, and become the highest rated film of all-time on the Internet Movie Database in less than two days. I would say that’s enough proof that people loved The Dark Knight.

As hinted at in the conclusion of Batman Begins, The Dark Knight sees the introduction of the caped crusader’s number one villain, The Joker. Formally played by veteran Jack Nicholson in the in the film Batman, The Joker is now revisited in a persona that’s much more attentive to the way the classic psychopathic villain is portrayed in the comic series. Filling his shoes is actor Heath Ledger, whose casting came as a shock to most fans of the first film, but once the first photos and videos of The Joker surfaced, fans began to quickly bury their trepidation and become increasingly more excited about a film that only promised greatness.

The Dark Knight focuses on the growing disturbance within the mob community due to the emergence of the Batman. Secretively in cooperation with Lt. Gordon, the two have been using tainted money to flush out mob controlled banks in an attempt to bring members of the mob to justice and clean up Gotham City, but there’s one man destined to ruin all their plans. A psychotic bank robber known as The Joker finds the mob’s frustration a perfect chance to take control of Gotham’s underbelly and give Gotham City a “better class of criminal”. When the mob decides to hire the services of The Joker to rid the city of Batman, they’re unaware of what they have decided to unleash, and who could possibly bring their all impending doom!

On the justice end of the spectrum Bruce Wayne and Lt. Gordon have high hopes for new elected District Attorney, Harvey Dent, whose passion for cleaning up Gotham City no matter what, gives some hope to Wayne that maybe he can put Batman to rest and go back to living a normal life. But as Dent says, “the night is always darkest before the dawn”, and the darkness is only beginning. As Batman, Gordon and Dent try to come up with a plan to combat Gotham’s recent rise in crime, The Joker is beginning his killing spree in an attempt to flush out Batman, by killing multiple high profile individuals in Gotham each day until Batman reveals his true identity. Batman and Dent are able to maintain some composure until The Joker begins getting personal and goes after Rachel Dawes, Wayne’s ex-girlfriend and Dent’s new flame. When Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes are captured by the crooked cops of Gotham, secretly under mob control, their location and ultimate fate lie in the hands of The Joker who’s surely got a trick up his sleeve which will change all their lives.

To get the praise out of the way, The Dark Knight is by far the best comic book film to date, I don’t think you’ll receive many arguments about that, but with that said it’s far from the best film ever made. While it’s the best acting, best story, best action, best everything you’ll find in a comic book adaptation, the film still did not “WOW” me in the general sense of the word. The film sets new boundaries for future comic adaptations, but for a typical action film The Dark Knight is only great… not fantastic. Since the new Batman series is attempting to break through all the stereotypical boundaries of comic book films to become as great as action films such as Gladiator or Braveheart, I feel the need to review it as such, and it’s not there yet, which is why I can’t see fit to give this film a perfect score, but maybe a second viewing would change my mind.

I have to say something about the Oscar buzz surrounding the late Heath Ledger, simply put I think it’s all a little over blown. For an actor who was not given much attention or credit for his past roles until his portrayal of a gay cowboy, I find it a little suspicious that upon his sudden death, he's immediately one of the greatest actors of all-time and his performance as The Joker is automatically Oscar worthy. Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker is definitely highly entertaining and completely puts to shame Jack Nicholson’s previous attempt at the role, which by the way I never thought to be that great. But I feel the acclaim surrounding his performance has a lot more to do with his death, and that had Ledger not suddenly died of a drug overdose, that was possibly related to depression brought on by the role of The Joker, he’d not be receiving all this Oscar buzz and acclaim. The fact of the matter is, however morbid this may sound, Heath Ledger's death was possibly more effective in exciting people to see this film than any of the mass marketing Warner Brothers crammed down our throats. Frankly this is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that Hollywood and the media attempts to profit from the tragic death of a young actor and I feel a large part of this movement to give Ledger an Oscar is more sympathy and publicity than it is fully due to his performance.

Another complaint I have that’s popped up on a lot of other individuals reviews is the dislike of Two-Face, who people claim only took screen time away from The Joker in the last forty minutes of the film and really added nothing to the story, that’s not true. First of all Two-Face is sorely underused, as The Scarecrow was in Batman Begins. Out of the final forty minutes following Harvey Dent’s transformation into Two-Face, his alter ego only has a total of maybe ten minutes of screen time and The Joker still continues to play a pivotal role in the story. Frankly Harvey Dent is a large cornerstone of The Dark Knight and without his transformation into the villainous Two-Face the entire point of the story would crumble.

Finally, and really my only large complaint about the film itself was the tremendously loud soundtrack. It seems rather petty, but there are quite a few times throughout the film (especially the end) where a character or group of characters are talking and the film's score is so loud it completely muffles out the dialogue! Batman Begins had a similar issue but The Dark Knight really suffers from this novice mistake. While everyone else complains about the two a half hour run-time I’m surprised not more people were annoyed by this. Speaking of the run-time, I understand many individuals’ complaints, and at times The Dark Knight does feel overly long, but honestly if forced to, I could not recommend anything to cut from the film that would not affect the overall story-line, every scene seemed to play an important role in the story.

In the end, The Dark Knight is a fantastic comic book adaptation and a great action film. It’s a film that’s been hyped up to a level so high that I don't believe it can truly live up to, but it does a great job trying. Unless you’re a complete stick in the mud you should find the film quite entertaining, even if it doesn’t live up to your expectations. Now the only thing that remains to be seen is whether or not Christopher Nolan can top this in the third edition, which Bale, Caine and Freeman are under contract to do. How can you possibly out do The Dark Knight? And can Nolan overcome the horrible third film curse which seems to devour most comic book trilogies? I hope he can, and I look forward to seeing what else he can pull out of his hat and who Batman’s next nemesis will be, frankly my money’s on Catwoman.

9/10