The Dark Knight - Review
July 29th, 2008 by Frank
What a Summer for us Superhero fans - Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and now The Dark Knight . Iron Man was fun, The Incredible Hulk was great until the CGI kicked in, but overall it has to be said Batman wins.
I’m very glad Christopher Nolan took over the Batman movies. When Tim Burton did Batman he did a great job, but it wasn’t the Batman I really wanted to see. Burton managed to roll a bit of everything up into one package, but perhaps just a little too much of the 60’s tv series got in the mix - as if the top fell off the shaker by accident when he was cooking it up…
The Batman I wanted to see was primarily Frank Miller’s Batman. Year One and The Dark Knight Returns. Batman Begins, Nolan’s first Batman film, certainly borrowed from Year One - and as a result I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the film where the slow unfurling of the character echoed Miller’s world stylistically, but I soon lost interest in the latter half of explosions and bombs and screaming and panic and general Hollywood finale.
Batman Begins was like a tease - look what we could give you, a gritty realistic Batman who exists in a world so like yours… but in the end you’ll still get an overblown, overdone explosion of Hollywood blockbuster muck.
It made me wonder though, if perhaps the next installment would have more confidence to stay the course and veer away from the Hollywood standard fare.
The Dark Knight certainly does several degrees better than it’s predecessor in this regard. The Dark Knight’s opening scene has been widely hailed as masterful, and rightly so. It’s perfect. It’s beautiful. It’s how it should be.
It’s a pity that the film doesn’t quite entirely hold onto the total and quite scary realism of the opening scenes but at least it never quite lets them go entirely either.
There are a couple of plot devices that were unnecessary, a couple of misplaced ‘humourous’ lines, and some completely unnecessarilly unbelievable technology which took from the overall brilliance of the film.
The film also suffers from a malady that almost all Summer blockbusters are infected with - a fear of letting the drama in the film breathe, lest the audience attention wander elsewhere. As a result some of the psychological or moral conundrums are either somewhat glossed over and upstaged by an action setpiece, or need to be over signposted to avoid same.
However, where Batman Begins borrowed from Year One, the moral and psychological issues in The Dark Knight are nicely lifted from The Dark Knight Returns, and it can’t be denied that this film is probably as close to Frank Miller’s Batman as Hollywood will allow any Summer Blockbuster to be - and so perhaps I shouldn’t complain.
And of course you have Heath Ledger’s Joker. I was sceptical. I expected a slightly darker immitation of Jack Nicholson’s Joker, I expected not to be impressed. I was wrong.
Nicholson did a perfect job for the Burton film, but Burton’s was not the Batman universe I was interested in. For me, Heath Ledger embodied the Joker flawlessly. This is how the Joker always was in my mind.
The Dark Knight borrows from The Dark Knight Returns, and Ledger borrows from The Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum to create a truly believable psychopathic supervillain.
Ledger is certainly the shining star of the film, and it would be so even if he had not tragically passed away before the film was released, but the film is full of strong performances. Aaron Eckhart is perfect as Harvey Dent, and I only wish Caine and Oldham had a few more strong scenes.
Christian Bale continues to do a great brooding Batman/Bruce Wayne, but as John McCarthy said to me today, Nolan’s genius is in making this feel like a film about Gotham rather than a film about Batman.
Go see it on the big screen. Twice.
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July 29th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
I wasn’t much of a fan of Batman Begins either, but none of it appealed to me, whereas you said you enjoyed the first half. I found it dull and lifeless, and Bale’s Batman seemed quite bland. That, and I really didn’t like Liam Neeson’s character! The dark Knight is a definite improvement in my eyes. It’s a lot more fun, and I’m not saying superhero movies should be all action, but this was just more enjoyable than its predecessor. I agree though that the gadgets such as the sonar cell phone thing were unecessary. There was enough going on alreadyto impress us with. Also I found the ending a bit of an anti-climax, going from the Joker (who was fantastic) to Dent in the warehouse and Lt. Gordon’s speech. Still, def one of the better movies of the summer so far. Aside from Ironman…
July 29th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
You mean you preferred Iron Man?
July 29th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Ok reading back my post that’s what it sounds like..I’m not sure! No I think Batman was better…but I liked Ironman a lot. I didn’t expect it to be so good so it was a nice surprise, whereas Batman is so hyped up, you go to see it with more of a critical eye.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:47 am
[...] Have you seen this: 03/14/2008: The Watchmen (Alan Moore) Film… « The Dark Knight - Review [...]
July 31st, 2008 at 12:05 pm
The guy initially slated to play the joker was… Sean Penn… The first time I heard about that, I was like “What? Sean? I can’t even imagine the guy smiling.”
But Chris Nolan showed us good that the joker doesn’t need to smile in the literal sense. The ’smile’ that they went with… is AWE inspiring. Whoever thought that up for the movie IS a bloody genius! That set the tone for the entire character. And of course, Heath Ledger overshadowed them ALL…
When I went for the movie, I was already impressed by Heath through whatever was shown in the trailer. I loved Jack Nicholson’s joker, which suited the mood of Tim Burton’s movie. But the trailer was enough to show me that Heath had gone MUCH farther with the character. Even then, I certainly did not expect him to be THIS good. One of the best performances of all time. It’s been a week since I’ve seen it, and the dialogues are still running through my head…
Why so serious?
August 4th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Just re-watched Batman Begins. Don’t think it’s fair to say “latter half of explosions and bombs and screaming and panic and general Hollywood finale.” It’s only the last half an hour or so that has the big explosions etc. In terms of the character development on Batman though I think it is necessary. He had made a few mistakes and was still finding his feet. He needed the big challenge and to prove himself as the hero to save Gotham. It was also important to bring Gordan and Batman together.
I felt the same as you, Frank, when I first saw it. Well, I felt it was a Hollywood ending. Watching it in the context of knowing where Nolan takes it, I can see that Batman Begins was used to lay the ground work for The Dark Knight. I am very impressed that he planned it out so much and can’t wait to see where he takes it next.
August 14th, 2008 at 1:39 am
You’re right, after watching it again I have to admit my memory of it was skewed.
I think I have been overly hard on Batman Begins, and on reflection, it would be fairer to say simply that the big finale just wasn’t handled very well. It wasn’t gripping or tense or dramatic or any of the things it should have been.
Overall the pacing of Batman Begins was much better throughout than I remembered and not just the first half, as you say.
I wonder if it was seeing the Dark Knight that has made me fonder of batman begins - after all this was my third or fourth viewing of it, and suddenly I like it much more than I did before? Odd.
August 14th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
No, no, it was reading my brilliant insight!