The Dark Knight Review

Let's see. It's 3:03 AM as I'm typing this sentence. Perhaps you're wondering why I chose to put out a review considering the lateness and the fact that I work tomorrow morning. Well...I'll tell you.

The Dark Knight is incredible.

I'm not going to tell you the whole story, partly because it would definitely spoil a lot, and partly because it is quite complex and long and I do not feel like typing it out. In a nutshell, Batman keeps the city safe, but Harvey Dent, the new District Attorney, has begun to lock up a surprisingly high number of criminals. All of a sudden, the Joker bursts onto the scene, causing chaos and forcing Batman to face his own values. That's all you need. The rest is up to you.

The atmosphere of the movie is incredibly intense and at the same time chaotic. There's tension in every scene amidst all the chaos that the Joker provides. I loved the dull, muted yellows and blues that engulf the entirety of Gotham. You really get the sense of the crime that is taking over. Furthermore, director Christopher Nolan moves throughout the scenery with incredible grace and sophistication, bringing Batman out of just "a comic book movie" into something that approaches art. We really begin to question our own morality, making our own choices to answer the questions that the movie presents. I haven't felt that way about a movie in a long time.

And what better character to have us decide morality than Batman, the Dark Knight? Christian Bale fully explores the realm of Bruce Wayne and Batman and delivers the incredibly close second best performance of the film. He is amazing, portraying a character spawned out of revenge yet bound to moral code he himself created and abides by. Is it right to abandon our morals if it means taking down the villain? Or does that action turn us into the villain itself? Not for a long time has a movie presented these questions so seriously, and yet does not come off as pompous or, at the other end of the spectrum, gimmicky. These choices are sophisticated, and as close to perfect as you can get.

The other actors also deliver surprisingly deep and believable performances. Almost everyone has and builds their own character, whether it is Aaron Eckhart portraying a very convincing Harvey Dent and showing a deep descent (I won't reveal what happens for those not schooled in Batman lore), or Maggie Gyllenhaal acting quite ably her character, Rachel Dawes (taking over and upgrading Katie Holmes' forgetful performance in Batman Begins) having to make up her mind in the crazy love triangle while living with the secret of Bruce Wayne's night job. Michael Caine is once again a good and very wise Alfred, always delivering that perfect piece of advice without ever sounding hackneyed, and even Morgan Freeman shows that he too has a code of ethics as he is once again his amazing self, playing the CEO of Wayne Enterprises Lucius Fox. There really is no bad performance to be found.

Oh there was one more character wasn't there? Oh yes...The Joker, portrayed in a tour de force performance by Heath Ledger. He is, without a doubt, probably the single most memorable character since Johnny Depp's introduction of Jack Sparrow. Ledger gives The Joker a certain menace that, I'm sorry Mr. Nicholson, not even you could give. This Joker is probably the scariest character on any screen in a long time. A VERY long time. And at the same time, he is hilarious, witty, clever, and bloody brilliant. There really aren't enough praises to give Ledger. If Johnny Depp earned an Oscar nod for Sparrow, there is absolutely no reason why Ledger should miss one. He will be the character every one talks about this year. Cooler, more intelligent, and more menacing than anything you've ever seen.

So where are the faults? There is one. For me. Scarecrow shows up and then kind of vanishes, and we are left wondering what happened. Sure he got caught, but in the Batman universe, the big guys ALWAYS escape.

People will say it's too long, people will say it drags, and people will say the story is too complicated for it's own good. To them I say, the length is absolutely necessary and plays out as totally convincing, to me it never dragged and I never once thought about looking at the time, and the story is complex, not complicated; it isn't all that hard to understand, but it may be too deep for some to grasp. And isn't it time a movie has been like that?

I actually had doubts that the movie would deliver. These were dispelled fully and totally. There is no reason why this movie should be left unseen by anyone. It is, for all intents and purposes, not just a great comic book movie, but a crime masterpiece. You should, you need to, and you must see The Dark Night.

Let's put a smile on that face...

5/5