The Dark Knight

Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/

This review does not contain spoilers

I went into this movie with higher expectations than I have for any film so far this year, perhaps even ever. There was so much hype prior to this film that it would be pretty hard to even live up to it. Reviewers were throwing around top scores and glowing descriptions all over the place and it was hard not to get caught up in it. It would have been overly disappointing if it somehow wasn’t as good as they say – and I thought. So I guess it’s a good thing that The Dark Knight was a masterpiece. The best film of the year, I’d even say one of the greatest films ever made. A few people may disagree which is up to them, but this isn’t Tim Burton’s Batman – there is no comedy, no Prince music, and nothing that looked like it came out of a comic book.

This is a hard review for me to write since I loved the film so much that I don’t want this to turn into 3 paragraphs of me going on about how awesome it was since that really tells you nothing. So I’m going to try and quantify the awesome, and explain why it became that way. So to start off, the soundtrack. It was much like playing the first Halo game in that they used silence to great effect. You don’t really notice that there is no music until it starts back up again, super powerful and perfect for the moment. This makes the impact so much greater and really pushes the emotion.

Christopher Nolan has crafted a world here that is so much more faithful to the comics than anything so far. Batman has always been a dark, gritty, noir detective story that was as much about the police and political figures as it was about the Batman himself, and that’s what Nolan has brought back. The writing was amazing. Perfect character development, amazing pacing, memorable dialogue, and no creation story or explanations for The Joker. That’s a big thing right there since I’ve always thought that comic book movies get too bogged down with the creation stories for all the characters – we more often than not don’t need them.

The cinematography, direction, and costuming/art direction were all top notch – there were plenty of shots that I was just blown away by, and Nolan really brought out some amazing performances on the part of the cast. Bale was better than the first film but no where near the strongest performance. Oldman was also much improved and I really enjoyed his character this time around. Gyllenhaal was a nice addition but nothing special. Surprisingly enough Caine and Freeman were both just average, but the parts were small so I guess it’s understandable that they couldn’t expand much.

Eckhart was amazing, it almost felt like he was playing two completely different roles and it was perfect. This film is definetly about Dent’s rise and fall, and Eckhart played it perfectly. Not to mention he looked ridiculously creepy. But for all that, this film is far and away Heath Ledger’s shining moment. There has already been talk that he deserves nothing less than an Oscar win and I couldn’t agree more. Of course there will be the people who believe he’s getting it out of sympathy but he really did pull off one of films greatest performances. Every single thing he did, all the little nuiances and movements, everything he said was pure Joker – and very much insane. He may not be the star but he most definetly stole the show.

I don’t think I could recommend this movie enough. You don’t need to like Batman, you don’t need to like comic book or super hero films, you don’t even need to like action. This movie was absolutely amazing and I would recommend it to anyone at all. I’d even recommend seeing it twice.

Imax Update:

I just got back from seeing Dark Knight for the second time, this time in Imax. I was completely blown away, it is an entirely different expirience and so much better than a normal theater. If there is an Imax in your area then there is absolutely no reason not to expirience this. I also really hope filmmakers start using the technology more since it is stunning to watch.

~ by Hobbes on July 19, 2008.