The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight. It’s hard for me to think of a film that does more right, while making me hate the title character.

The story is fairly simple, as far as comic book films go. Gotham’s police department is going after the Mob’s money, and Batman is helping them. The Joker goes to the Mob, and offers to help, while really just trying to get people to join his cause, which is just to cause chaos.

The acting is incredible, especially Heath Ledger as the Joker. More has been said about his performance than about any other character, probably, so I won’t go on for too long, but I’ll just say this. He feels real. Unlike most “supervillians”, he feels grounded in reality a lot more. His plan is chaos. Why? Fun. The Joker is wonderfully insane, in such a way that makes the audience like him, and sympathise with him. Heath Ledger played such a different Joker than we’d ever seen on film, and he was honestly quite scary. Every little motion, every flicker of a thought crossing his mind seemed real. There was never a bit where you thought “Haeath Ledger”, it was always “the Joker”. The rest of the cast is almost as good. Michael Caine, as always, great fun to watch. Morgan Freeman does a great job as Fox, Batman’s chief tech.

Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon is fantastic, really becoming the character. He is essentially, along with Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent, the audience’s point of view for the majority of the plot. Great acting from the both of them, especially after Harvey becomes Two-Face, and meet at the end of the film. Probably one of the best scenes in the film, were it not for Batman.

Oh, Batman. I never really liked Batman. He’s not a character, he’s an event. There are scenes in the film when characters are discussing politics and crime, all serious looking, and it could almost just be a film about cops, and then Batman walks in wearing his underpants on the outside, and starts growling at people. The whole concept is just a bit annoying to me. As I said, an event. Things start happening, plot is unfolding, and then Batman happens. Shows up, punches people, and then leaves the rest of the characters to figure out what to do next. Also, the whole idea of him is a bit wrong to me. He’s a wealthy businessman, who goes around at night beating up poor people, and it is invariably poor people who have been taken in by criminals, and basically brought up a different way from him, and so he beats them senseless. Turn the point of view around, and it’s a group of underdogs fighting “the Man”.

Anyways, Batman’s underpants troubles aside, the film is great. Really well shot, some great action, fantastic practical effects work, great music by Hans Zimmer, and great acting. Overall, I highly recommend it. Best entry in the Dark Knight saga.