The Dark Knight Review

Thanks to Raven Software which my friend works for and thus I was able to get a ticket to go see the new Batman movie. The second in the latest series of Batman was nothing short of stellar. I can’t begin to describe just how pleased I was with the movie, but then I guess this is what I’m trying to do with this particular article.

Like everyone else, I feel like I need to talk about Heath Ledger first. Ledger of course died a couple months ago from a prescription drug overdose, officially an accidental one, many suspect it was suicidal. Those who think it is suicidal think it is largely due to his role as the Joker. After watching the role, I guess I don’t see it. I mean the movie is a dark dark movie, but if anyone were to commit suicide over it I would assume it’d be either Christian Bale or the guy who played Harvey Dent, both of which still live somehow. If Ledger did commit suicide, I would say that it was likely a culmination of his own depression and life that led him to it and the movie was just coincidental (but how much fun is it for the media to talk about coincidence?). If Heath Ledger wins an Oscar for this movie, it will be well deserved, and not just because he died.

Ledger in this movie was absolutely amazing. I texted my brother who is also a Batman fan afterwards and said “Ledger made Nicholson look piss poor.” And that is an understatement. Nicholson who has long been believed to have played a role that was so suited for him in the original Batman movie, looks like an amateur compared to what Ledger did with the role. I have no words for it really…. Ledger was nothing before this, and it is sad that he is no longer with us because A) we don’t get to see him reprise the role ever and B) this movie would have skyrocketed his career into another realm. Just spectacular… he thought of the role so well and so thoroughly that I seriously think no one should take on this role in live action movies for at least another 25 years.

The Joker as a character was also written and directed very well. While I did enjoy the Tim Burton Batman movie quite a lot, this one realy did with Joker, what a fan of the comics might have expected to see out of him. He was cunning, tricky, and always doing something completely unexpected. But moreover, he was incredibly smart. In the Burton movie, he was a mere mobster who had psychotic tendancies, this time around he was just a psychopath and it worked so much better for him. And all while he was running around murdering everyone in sight, you laughed because he did in such a way that was just plain funny.

Harvey Dent/Two Face was suitable both acting and writing, though unfortunately a bit short. I thought the Harvey Dent side of the character was kind of Stale but I think the actor did really well for the short time that he actually went into Two Face mode. It is unfortunate that this character was really cut short. I mean Harvey Dent ran the entire movie and was a major character, but that was always the uninteresting side of Two Face. Two Face himself barely even appeared in the movie. I have seen a couple reviews say that Two Face’s new face was a little over the top, but I thought it was actually really well done and a fairly clever way to make a more realistic version than the previous chemical spill that did it. I didn’t necessarily believe his psychotic break however which could have been done better, and largely may have been the result of them playing up Harvey Dent more than they should have.

Christian Bale again looks to be the best Batman to date. There isn’t much to say here. I don’t think that this performance was quite as strong as his performance in Batman Begins was, but then in this movie, his role was much smaller. This movie was really more Joker than anyone else which was fine considering how well they did Joker.

Rachel played by Gyllenhaal was very forgetable, though the story with her was ok. I thought Gyllenhaal was sadly not good with it. There was a slight chemistry between her and Dent, but almost nothing between her and Bale which was a little worrisome. While certainly she was no longer with Bruce Wayne in this movie, she should have been more connected. This I thought was too bad because I really loved her in Stranger Than Fiction where she played her character great and seemed to have a real connection with Will Ferrell.

To say this movie was great, may very well be an understatement. This movie is very very easily one of the best Superhero movies of all time, and deserves to be in the pantheon of great action movies as well. This Batman was so good that I think it may very well turn out to be the best Batman movie of all time, which is a lot to say, there is quite a lot to compete with there. I was more than happy to hear that Dark Knight’s opening day of $66 million beat out the horridly made Spiderman 3’s previous record of $60 million as this movie definitely deserves the record much better. After all Spiderman 1 wasn’t as good as this movie is.

Doing grades, I give this movie an A+. Watch it, buy it, watch it some more, it is worth it.