Featured Review: DARK KNIGHT

The Dark Knight



Starring- Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Eric Roberts, Anthony Michael Hall, William Fichtner, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman



Directed by Christopher Nolan



Grade: A



"Some men just want to watch the world burn."

The Dark Knight, after months and months of hype, anticipation, reflection on the death of Heath Ledger and so forth, is still nothing short of amazing. It is an exhilarating, exhausting thrill ride that is also as darkly Gothic and rich in storyline as almost any cinematic drama comes. Director Christopher Nolan takes visual cues from all the best heist films and elevates Knight into a class of superhero movies unto itself. His actors take it into something beyond superhero.

It is certainly not the greatest film of all-time, or for me, even a perfect five star/A+ movie. Indeed it is one of the greatest action movies of all-time, if not the best. The acting, the story, just about everything is an achievement in a film that revolves around pyrotechnic sequences. But while the spectacle and effects are downright breathtaking, it doesn't completely excuse The Dark Knight from its minor flaws. Rather, it just pushes them aside and let us enjoy an incredible experience.

We welcome billionaire Bruce Wayne and his crime fighting alter ego Batman (Christian Bale) back after a short ebb in crime. Having put away the most dastardly of villains behind the mask, Wayne finds that the real hero now is Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), a very public District Attorney. Dent is the man that can do no wrong, and his judicial powers of locking up large quantities of the Mob gives the public reason to believe they don't need Batman anymore. That is of course, until The Joker (Heath Ledger), a nefarious madman without a soul, begins to ramp up his murderous mayhem sprees. But neither Batman nor Dent have the right tools to battle with a man who has no motive or conscious, blurring the line between what's right and what's wrong. For that, both will pay some major sacrifices.

The performances of course, is the centerpiece of the film, and they are all stunning. In fact, as good of an actor as Bale is, both in this film and his career resume (The Prestige, 3:10 To Yuma, American Psycho), he is perhaps the WORST one in this movie. His caped crusader voice, gruff and raspy, is one of the few very minor things that kept me from giving The Dark Knight a perfect score. It's rare to see the leading actor, especially one that revolves around a big budgeted costumed protagonist, be so outshone by some of his supporting cast. Bale was solid, and again shows he's much better suited for the part than George Clooney or Val Kilmer was, but the other actors were just that much superior.

The first and most obviously is Heath Ledger in his final major role. The buildup that has surrounded his death and performance nearly choked me to death, but it is easy to see why. As the Joker, he completely immerses himself with the character and becomes one of the darkest, creepiest, and most well-written villains in cinematic history. Nobody in Gotham knows his story, yet the entire world seems to understand that he is the deeply disturbed type that just can't be reasoned with. Ledger gives one of his finest performances here, making the Joker a real, if absolutely wacko, villain, something that Jack Nicholson and Cesar Romero failed to do.

But for all the scrutiny surrounded on Ledger's role, somewhat lost in the shuffle is Aaron Eckhart. As Harvey Dent he is magnificent as the everyday hero, mixing in a bit of cockiness with an increasing weariness of the battle against crime that he's losing. All he wants is for his city to be a safe place, to be able to take his girlfriend, Bruce Wayne flame Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, replacing Queen of Scientology Katie Holmes) out and not be harassed by crime. He is, as the city officials call him a "white knight". After the Joker initiates a terrible disaster that destroys him both physically and mentally (some awesomely sick effects, like a human exoskeleton from the Terminator movies), he himself goes on a spree of terror, infinitely beating the trash out of Billy Dee Williams' Dent in Tim Burton's Batman, and Tommy Lee Jones' Two-Face performance in Batman Forever. Both Eckhart and Ledger deserve Supporting Actor nominations.

Let's not forget Gary Oldman as James Gordon, Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth, and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox. All are consummate actors who could have phoned in their roles because in the beginning The Dark Knight doesn't seem like the award potential type. But they, and Oldman especially, are just as solid to watch here as in many of their movies. Gyllenhaal herself improves the Rachel Dawes character more than Holmes ever could.

The only plot thread that bothered me was the fate of The Joker. (This paragraph has spoilers, so don't read it if you haven't seen the film). In the original cut of the film, The Joker supposedly kills himself. But out of sensitivity to Ledger's death, the last we see of him is being caught on a high wire and swarmed by SWAT members. But after it was shown how he could so easily escape from jail, wouldn't it be easy to assume he could break out any time he wanted to? It would've helped to have some finality, especially considering the fate of Ledger proving nearly impossible to resurrect the character in this Nolan canon of the Batman series.

But those gripes are just tiny insignificant specks in an otherwise large, masterful film. Christopher Nolan, with Memento under his belt has taken that rich history of dark dramas that get award voters in a tizzy and made it mainstream for the factions of the movie going public that only see box office actioners. He and his actors prove that, like graphic novels are to comic books, action movies can have a brilliant and deep storyline.

All praise aside to the first two Spider-Man films, but The Dark Knight is possibly the richest superhero movie of them all. And that's no joke.