2009 Advisor
MikeMaroon
Chattanooga, TN

Why..So...Serious? The Dark Knight is the hero we all need.

5 star rating

a movie buff, Read the comic before there was a movie
Pros

    Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Tightly edited, Christain Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart

Cons
    Some may think it long, not me

JUL
20
2008
 
 
 

The Dark Knight — 

As The Dark Knight begins, a scant year has passed since Bruce Wayne, in his guise as the Batman, plunged himself into Gotham City's war on crime and ruined the Scarecrow's attempt to eliminate the entire metropolis.  The mob, who once owned the city are now mostly  running scared from this masked vigilante.  After all, with the help of Lt Gordon, he has come very close to cleaning up the city.  But, all is not well. The public, you see,  are ingrates.  They don't really understand the Batman, so they are calling for his head.  To make matters worse, he has spawned copy cats, guys who show up at crime scenes wearing homemade bat-suits.  Only, they don't have the same training as Mr Wayne, so they tend to carry guns and shoot up the place.

Now, an unknown, to this point, new criminal has just catapulted himself into the spotlight by robbing the mob's bank. These are the first scenes in the film, a spectacular bank robbery in broad daylight that sets into motion a series of events, some tragic, some comic, some shocking, that pluck us from our comfortable theater seats and plop us down smack in the middle of high drama with characters we come to care about.  This ain't your Uncle Milty's comic-book super-hero movie.

The plot is simple enough. The mob can't operate "normally" because they have no idea how to deal with this vigilante, the Batman, who along with Lt Gordon (Gary Oldman) and the seemingly fearless new district attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart, in his finest outing to date), has turned the tables on them.  Enter the Joker.

The hype over Heath Ledger's last performance?  Believe it. Deserved.  This ain't your Uncle Jack's clown prince of crime, boys and girls.  No, as embodied by Ledger, the Joker is a man without a soul, with no obvious motive.  The most dangerous sort of man. One who, as our sage butler Alfred (Micheal Caine)  observes, .."can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with.  Some men just want to watch the world burn."  When he is on-screen, we find ourselves mesmerized and terrified at the same time.

 Wearing clown make-up that seems smeared on by a little kid with finger paints rather than applied, Ledger's every little tick, every flick of his tongue, every halloweenish smile, is twinge-worthy and conjures the devil himself, a devil who's mind has slithered through the cracks of sanity.  Yet, he's diabolically clever, as he pits the city against authority, the authorities against each other, and all of them against the Batman.

His sole purpose seems to be the humiliation of the good guys, as he targets Dent, Gordon and Bruce Wayne's former squeeze, Asst. DA Rachel Dawes, this time played by the excellent Maggie Gyllenhaal (a nice improvement over Katie Holmes).  He plays these tricks with glee, under the guise of making the town safe for the mob again, yet we get the feeling he would do this just for the fun of it.  One visceral scene has the Joker walking away from a hospital as he watches it blow up, turning occasionally to admire his handiwork, yet disaffected by its impact.  He stops just long enough to make sure the button on his remote works to charge the final explosion, letting out an exasperated sigh of relief when it does.

Screenwriter brothers Christopher (who also directs) and Johnathan Nolan succeed masterfully at the work they started in the outstanding Batman Begins, turning the comic-book movie paradigm on its ear.  Oh, they provide us with plenty of good guy/bad guy fighting, frantic chase scenes, and explosions, but they also drag us though the muck of human emotions behind the actions, humanizing these people as super-hero movies never do.

They plow head-on into the deep fears and traumas that cause two grown men to act out in such, uh, unusual fashion .  Batman's encounter with cruel childhood tragedy is the force that drives him, and we know this because the first film thoroughly plowed that ground.  Bruce Wayne is a rich, powerful man, yet a conflicted one.  He's torn between avenging his parents' deaths, one mobster at a time, and finding a way to give up his cape and cowl to be with the woman he loves. Bale (best Batman. Ever.) gives a fine turn as he tries to choose, knowing he loves someone with all his heart,  yet obligated to feed the demons raging inside his very soul. None of this gets easier as he finds himself barreling toward lines he thought he'd never cross, but knowing that crossing them might be the only way to stop a madman who has no boundaries.

Ledger's Joker comes from a similar place, yet a different sort of cruelty, which is probably why he acts out by destroying, where Bruce Wayne attempts to harness his dark side for good.  Both are deeply troubled men, but Batman understands where his anger originates, unlike the Joker, who can't even keep the story of how he got his scars straight.  He's a total loose cannon, self-described as "a dog chasing a car.  I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it!"

They don't stop there.  Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), Wayne's trusted design engineer, is drawn into a morally ambiguous situation involving spying on the entire city through their cell phones "for the greater good" and Harvey Dent's DA of fearless integrity spirals into the dark abyss of revenge as the result of a tragic event near the end of the film.

THE BOTTOM LINE


The Nolan brothers have pulled off the near impossible,  marrying a highly entertaining thrill ride to an introspection of the human condition and, in doing so may have created a true masterpiece for the ages. That's right, The Dark Knight just may be the best super-hero movie ever made.  Shoot,  it might be one of the best movies.  Ever.   GRADE: A+

Last edited on Jul 23, 2008



I_thumb_up The Dark Knight is recommended by MikeMaroon

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I_comment_shdw24 Comments about MikeMaroon’s Review

 


this2shallpass19 wrote on Dec 20, 2008 at 1:55PM

I absolutely loved Heath Ledger's performance, however, I was disappointed in the movie itself because I loved the last one so much. This one had a totally different feeling to it. Thanks for another great review.

vetter2005 wrote on Aug 11, 2008 at 11:50PM

I agree - I enjoyed the movie as well!!!!

elvisdo wrote on Aug 3, 2008 at 10:32PM

I absolutely love this movie and your review did it justice.

skbreese wrote on Jul 28, 2008 at 6:38PM

Great review, I have to see this movie

BubleFan1 wrote on Jul 25, 2008 at 7:33PM

I hated Batman Begins but I LOVED The Dark Knight. It's by far the BEST Batman flick!!!

tdiprincess wrote on Jul 25, 2008 at 11:46AM

Great review on the movie. Really makes me understand it a bit more. Although, I don't know if I'll be going.. I don't like scary movies

Bryan-Carey wrote on Jul 24, 2008 at 11:33PM

Heard many great things about this movie. We need to find a sitter so we can go see it. Almost every review I have read is positive.

JovialCougar wrote on Jul 23, 2008 at 6:02PM

I heard that Heath Ledger was disturbed by his character in this movie at the time of his death. Maybe it was a bit too dark? Nice review!

MikeMaroon wrote on Jul 22, 2008 at 8:50PM

In response to shadaram's comment from Jul 20, 2008 at 10:46AM:

In the words of Elvis....thankyaverimush!

MikeMaroon wrote on Jul 22, 2008 at 8:49PM

In response to Fardreamer's comment from Jul 22, 2008 at 9:51AM:

Ah, but the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher movies, well they were "Disco Duck" to "The Dark Knight's " Beethoven's 5th.....

MikeMaroon wrote on Jul 22, 2008 at 8:48PM

In response to PattyTherre's comment from Jul 22, 2008 at 4:00PM:

He was arrested, but denies all the charges and there, so far, is no real proof he did it.

MikeMaroon wrote on Jul 22, 2008 at 8:47PM

In response to onyx95's comment from Jul 22, 2008 at 4:26PM:

It was THAT good!

onyx95 wrote on Jul 22, 2008 at 4:26PM

Wow, that good huh? Can't wait to see it now.

PattyTherre wrote on Jul 22, 2008 at 4:00PM

I'm actually going to see a Batman movie this weekend. I can't believe it. But I love Heath Ledger and would have seen it even if he didn't pass away at such an young age. Now, I MUST see it as it the last movie he actually finished. It sounds very good. Christian Bale is good but he went and got arrested for assaulting his mother and sister. What's up with THAT?

Fardreamer wrote on Jul 22, 2008 at 9:51AM

Interestingly, I always figured Christian Bale would be a top-notch actor ever since I saw him in 1987's Empire of the Sun. Admittedly, I've not watched Batman Begins yet; I was burned by the earlier Batman movies and, frankly, I didn't want to be burned again even though Christopher Nolan is a better filmmaker than either Tim Burton or, yuck, Joel Schumacher, whose surreal and over the top comic book movies clash greatly with Richard Donner's more believable Superman: The Movie.

Wonderful review, by the way. Now you've got me interested in at least getting this on DVD along with Batman Begins!

shadaram wrote on Jul 20, 2008 at 10:46AM

Excellent review on the story and characters. I can't wait to see this movie again!