Under The Knife – THE DARK KNIGHT

by Awesome The Hedgehog

(I believe whatever doesn’t kill you simply makes you…stranger.)

NOTE: This will be a really spoilerific and very long review, since everyone has already seen it and I wanted to give my take more on the film rather than say if you should watch it or not.

I don’t care if it isn’t BATMAN Week/Month anymore (which was my idea anyway); I just want to share my thoughts with you about The Dark Knight. I decided to hold off on doing a review (if you can call it that) of it until I saw the film twice, enough for me to really understand what my stance was on it. I know you think I’m going to say this was the best movie ever and deserves to be Number 1 on IMDB’s Top 250 Films, well let’s cut to the chase.

Actually no, wait I forgot the synopsis, damn it guys, I can’t believe you let me do that! Taking place after the events of Batman Begins and Batman: Gotham Knight (Still not entirely sure if that is cannon or not), Gotham begins to become a lot more aware of Batman and because of this, he gains many followers who attempt to help him prevail against criminals. However, this doesn’t exactly help him as soon they and the innocent civilians of Gotham become victim to The Joker’s torturous rebellion of chaos. The Joker doesn’t really have a motive to his crimes; he just wants to challenge himself whilst acting out what he does, in fact two quotes from the film perfect the persona that is The Joker: “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” By Alfred and “I’m like a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do if I caught one…I’d just do things.” By The Joker himself. The challenge The Joker sets himself in Gotham is that he can bring anyone down to his level, even the “white knight” Harvey Dent, who of course later in the film becomes Two Face.

There isn’t really much character development for Bruce/Batman, Rachel, Lucius or Alfred. It’s all about the new people in this one, Bruce doesn’t even reflect back on the times he had with his father anymore, it’s a little weird to me how far The Dark Knight actually stems away from Batman Begins, considering it’s the same series. They were far into fixing Wayne Manor at the end of the first film, now it just looks like they’ve given up, which makes the Alfred’s line about making the bat cave bigger a bit misleading. There was barley any scenes with Gotham during the daytime in Begins, now there’s plenty in TDK. The darkness factor has also really pumped up a lot, let’s face it, everyone jumped out of their seats at the movies when they saw the dead batman fan hanging outside the window and don’t get me started on how twisted (yet awesome) Two Face’s new look is. I’m very surprised at how scary some parts are, this movie got a 12A rating in the UK, but I would expect this to so get a 15, blood or no blood, this film would probably scare me at some parts if I was a 12 year old kid. Batman Begins was never this dark, that movie earned it’s 12A rating, TDK is like sneaking in pretending to be underage, if you get what I’m saying.

Heath Ledger as The Joker, yeah he was great, definitely iconic as Nolan said himself. He brought a different quality to the role that can never be matched, the timing of each line, it was like every line in he had in the film was intended as a one liner for the trailer, but in a goody way, not a cheesy way. The timing, the facial expressions, the voice, the laughter he really made the role his own. Now, about the posthumous Oscar that Heath could get, I’m not saying he isn’t good enough, but come to think of it I have seen a lot of films this year and not on supporting role has really compared to him, considering a he’s a supporting actor that steals the movie. If no one is better than him this year then yes, he should win, of course he should win if that is the case.

Aaron Eckhart did a superb job as Harvey Dent, the guy really gives off a lovable attitude vibe, which makes it much more depressing when he’s driven insane by the loss of Rachel. Two-Face essentially acts as Nolan’s secret weapon for The Dark Knight, unless you’re a hardcore geek you wouldn’t know he was in it. To be honest, I would have preferred it that way, could they have not just kept his gross face of the Internet for long enough for everyone to see it? Because that side of his face is a real payoff near the end of the film and it’s a shame to see it go to waste because of Google Images. I like how he was played off as a vigilante though, rather than a straight up villain, he can be really insane at some points too, like that part where he takes out Sal Maroni’s driver and the car goes flying, I mean really, was that honestly necessary, he could have got out of the car first, what is he a daredevil? Unless Two Face returns for the sequel, I think it’s unfair to develop a villain that late into the film and kill him off so quickly. The whole film might as well have been just Harvey Dent in that case (like Tim Burton’s Batman).

Speaking of which, you’re probably thinking that I’m going to rant on about how short The Scarecrow’s appearance was. Well, that’s true, but I was a little more confused by it. I mean everyone who’s seen Begins remembers Batman spraying Crane with his own Fear Gas, causing him to go insane, but in TDK he sounds more sensible, as if it had never happened. I dunno, perhaps he was just faking it to look like a professional businessman in front of the Russians, but still it’s a little weird. Ironically, The Scarecrow’s performance is the last indication of any relevance of Begins to me.

I did like the scenes where Batman is investigating the crime scenes and what not, because he is a detective, an element they left out in Begins. However it also makes the film less of a superhero film, none of the main characters have any superpowers and none of the villains have anything to aid themselves with but guns (at least Scarecrow had fear gas and Ra’s had an army of ninjas).This makes the film more of a crime/drama, which just happened to star Batman. Yet, despite all this ‘lacking’ I’m going on and on about, TDK really ups the ante with the action scenes, I mean, my god, they were a big notch up from the amateur stuff in Begins. The chase scene, where The Joker is after Dent, was brilliantly executed (Funnily enough, I thought it was the climax of the film, turns out it was only the half way point, but I won’t go on about the length that much as everyone already has). The film also had an amazing musical score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, I was hooked on it by the very first scene, it’s so perfectly done and ‘Why So Serious’ fits the tone when The Joker’s on screen constantly, you know that song where it starts out like you have water stuck in you ear and it gets louder and louder, like a screaming noise or a siren, as something gets tense or closer. Excellent!

The interrogation scene really did make this film Oscar worthy, so many memorable lines which project great script writing by Christopher Nolan, his brother Jonathan Nolan and possibly David S. Goyer (I know he did the story, but not sure on his input on the script). “Do you wanna know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick. You can’t savor all the… little… emotions. In… you see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are. So in a way, I know your friends better than you ever did. Would you like to know which of them were cowards?”, “You’ll see, I’ll show you, that when the chips are down, these uh… civilized people, they’ll eat each other.” and “Kill you? I don’t want to kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, you… you complete…me.” It’s lines like these that show The Joker doesn’t need to confront Bruce Wayne for that little bit more character development, the mystery between both their identities and them both not knowing who each other are makes it much more tense and electrifying to watch.

Overall, I have to say I preferred Batman Begins, as I said many things in this film almost try to get away from it’s predecessor at it’s a little disturbing to watch. But that’s not to say this film isn’t inspiringly amazing, because it is. I find Begins and TDK to be as good as each other; I just like Begins more as it had a bigger impression on me (considering what it followed up). I definitely recommend it, I mean as soon as I got out of seeing it for the first time, I knew I wanted to see it again, everyone moment was great watch and so what if some of the dialogue was self righteous and up its own ass/deep, like I said in my Batman Begins review: It’s like Pulp Fiction, the characters could be talking about McDonalds and other crap and yet there’s something about that you have to listen to, it just keeps you going and you love it. The only difference this time is that every line in the film is almost totally relevant to the plot and its many subplots (which are able to be kept under control and most of which are unimportant anyway). Another funny little note, I like how Alfred doesn’t seem to care that everyone is dead, whether it be innocent Gotham civilians or Rachel, but I did like his little backstory about the criminal and the jewels, it makes him less of a one dimensional character than he was in Begins.

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