The Dark Knight (2008) Review

Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Screenplay written by: Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan
Tagline: Why So Serious?

In A Nutshell

Bruce Wayne/Batman (Christian Bale) continues to eliminate crime in Gotham City with the help of Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). The Joker (the late Heath Ledger) soon takes over organized crime as he kills off the crime bosses one by one. The Joker's plan is to terrify the citizens and throw the city into chaos, and then kill Batman.

Prime Cuts

This is Heath Ledger's last great performance. I absolutely do think he deserves an Oscar for his performance. It has nothing to do with his passing. This just proves how great of an actor he was. Heath turned that partial script into an edgy, frightening and creepy character. Not only that, but he is the most charismatic guy of the story as everyone else looks cold and boring in comparison with their shallow politically-correct slogans.

Joker managing to keep a pencil perfectly balanced on a table while a large gangster stomps across the floor to fight him was a cool moment.

This movie had some great special effects (mainly towards the end).

Morgan Freeman had a couple of nice moments. Same with Gary Oldman.

Christopher Nolan trying to inject at least some intelligence into a summer blockbuster.

Fat & Gristle

Joker burns a pyramid of money, because money is not important to him. What's important to him is burning stuff up... which is exactly why he robbed a bank at the beginning of the movie.

There is no character development for the Joker. Heath Ledger is simply a bad man who wants to kill Batman. That's the beginning and end of the Joker's character goes. And the famous line"why so serious?" felt like there should have been more to the story, but we only get just a tiny little taste.

Christopher Nolan wanted this to be a realistic depiction of Batman, which is why we have sonar cell phones in this movie and magic armor and explosive laced Bat Mobiles that turn into motorcycles which do gravity defying 360 turns on walls.

No Bat cave and Chicago looks a bit too bright and modern to be Gotham City. Seriously, what is Gotham City without, you know, Gothic architecture? I miss the grit that Tim Burton brought into Gotham City.

There's no real hero to root for. Seriously, you will dislike Batman in this movie since Christian Bale seems to have lost a sense of what he's doing and Batman's voice was sounding like Rod Stewart's singing voice that at times I couldn't take it seriously.

No iconic fight scenes.

The movie doesn't give lip-service to Two-Face's love for duality at all. He just wakes up and goes "Gee, I have a burnt face. May as well run off and start plugging people".

Those people on the boat would not have talked things out in a civilized manner with the bombs about to explode. Pandemonium would have ensued, and that in the real world they would have dead in 10 seconds flat.

Maggie Gyllenhaal (as not-too-pretty woman to play Batman's love-of-his-life) was awful. It is a terrifying thing to say that Katie Holmes was better. And the love interest was bland.

Remarks

I was pretty disappointed overall. Don't get me wrong, I loved the movie, I had fun with it and Heath Ledger's performance blew me away and he also blew every actor away he shared screen time with, but this movie doesn't compate to Batman Begins because that movie had a great storyline, character development, good pacing and crescendos, while The Dark Knight had absolutely no plot.

I'd go ****.