The Dark Knight Film Review

BOTTOM LINE: "The Dark Knight" is nothing short of brilliant. It elevates the comic book movie to a level that matches any serious Oscar-winning film, has deep thematic story and structure which will actually engage your brain, and has some of the most stellar performances you're likely to see, beginning with Heath Ledger's unforgettable and sinister turn as the Joker which manages to out-do even the great Jack Nicholson.

THE GOOD: I'm ready to say that this is without a doubt the best Hollywood film of the year. When they finally get it right, that's when you feel the magic of the cinema. This film delivers as an entertainment, as a spectacle, and most importantly, as a strong story with haunting, deeply dramatic themes and masterful, chilling performances. Batman Begins was already a fantastic film, but somehow, director Christopher Nolan has upped the ante and managed to deliver a film that is better in every department, and it's not all smiles and sunshine as most warm and fuzzy Hollywood blockbusters tend to be. This is a dark, brooding film where not everything turns out well, including Batman himself who discovers that by becoming a dark, symbolic vigilante to stomp out crime in Gotham City that he may in fact be making matters worse. This deterioration in law and order is personified in the rise of the Joker, played with such a chilling, gleeful menace by Heath Ledger that you'll feel your hairs stand up on end every time he appears. He's nasty, funny and mad; he doesn't want money or power. He's a total anarchist who wants to show the people of Gotham City how black they really are. He says to Batman, "when the chips are down, these so called civilised people will eat each other!" What makes the Joker work so well is that he's not afraid of Batman at all. In one powerful scene where Batman is interrogating the Joker and trying his best to intimidate him, the Joker responds by laughing in Batman's face the more he attacks him, and trying to push Batman to cross the line; there are moments where you can see hints of desperation in Batman when he realises that there's nothing he can do to break this mad clown. Therein lies the crux of what makes this film great; the Joker is powerful enough to stand up to Batman (getting the upper hand in some cases), and the Joker continually throws impossible moral and ethical choices at Batman for his own amusement. Each of these choices ends in a bad place for Batman, particularly in the case of Gotham District Attorney Harvey Dent (played brilliantly arrogant by Aaron Eckhart) who transforms in to Two-Face after one of the Joker's pranks burns half of his face and kills the love of his life, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). This is a film I would recommend seeing more than once because there's so much going on that you'll appreciate more the second time around. Aside from Heath Ledger's spectacular performance as the Joker which has far more depth, range and chills than Nicholson's performance as the Joker in Tim Burton's Batman (no small feat that!), Christian Bale is once again excellent as both Bruce Wayne and Batman, particularly in the latter with his dark, voice from hell interpretation of the character. Batman, as played by Bale, is darker and more sinister this time around, but he's still the central character despite the emergence of the Joker in the story. Aaron Eckhart is wonderful as Harvey Dent/Two-Face, and in many ways delivers a performance that is just as strong and chilling as Ledger's, although it may not get as much attention. Gary Oldman shines as the newly promoted Commissioner Gordon and is the only real 'good' guy in the film who along with Batman is trying to reign in Gotham's criminal hierarchy. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are great in their respective roles of Lucius Fox and Alfred Pennyworth in assisting Bruce Wayne to be Batman. There's also a delicious sub-plot where an employee of Wayne Enterprises discovers that Bruce Wayne is Batman and tries to blackmail him over it. Fox replies to him, "let me get this straight, you want to blackmail someone who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands? Good luck!". This is a film that delivers on all of its promise and more; go see it now!

THE BAD: I would have given this movie 10/10 but it does have a couple of minor problems. One of the issues with the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher Batman films is that they killed off the villains in each film (for the most part). Given that this franchise will continue unspooling indefinitely, killing off villains is not a good idea given that they could appear in future films. In Batman Begins, Liam Neeson's Ras Al Ghul was killed off at the end, but there was something very dramatic and correct about that happening given his connection to Batman/Bruce Wayne. In this film, unfortunately Two-Face gets knocked off at the end. Although it makes sense in the story, his character's dramatic realisation on screen, both visually and as played by Aaron Eckhart, makes you want more from the character in future films. In fact, he's got more screen time in this film than I ever imagined given that the Joker was the central bad guy this time around. I felt it was a shame because with all the hoopla surrounding Heath Ledger's performance, Eckhart puts in an equally effective turn as Harvey Dent/Two-Face which you could theoretically see continue. Another problem with this film was the running time. The first hour of the film felt a little long, and it's not until the Joker starts appearing more often that the film gathers pace. The film does cover a lot of thematic territory but the almost two and a half hour running time could have been tightened up a little bit. The only other problem I felt was the treatment of The Scarecrow character from Batman Begins, which is executed more as an afterthought than anything else and probably didn't even need to be in the film at all other than to establish a sense of continuity with the villains to the previous film.