THE DARK KNIGHT [2008] review
August 3, 2008 · Print This Article
WARNING: SPOILERS
Right after the Joker was captured at about the half-way point of THE DARK KNIGHT, I was already thinking to myself, “the most badass film, ever.” Then the film totally changed gears and became an incredible psychological thriller and statement on the effect of terrorism on modern society. I was not prepared for this dual-genre film, and it blew me away leaving me walking out of the theater knowing it will enter my pantheon of unforgettable movie going experiences.
Japan, as always, got this movie late, but only two weeks late this time, but those were still an excruciating 14 days. I had heard of course that the movie was incredible and was the best comic book movie by far. I can agree with both of those accolades, with the one caveat that this does not feel like any other comic book movie I’ve seen. DARK KNIGHT hits home, and hits home hard, and hits the viewer, hard. I do not think the viewer can prepare for just how hard this movie hits and will resonate in the viewer’s mind. Even someone like myself, knowing so much about the movie beforehand, was totally unprepared.
The first half of the movie was so badass, and the action sequences so incredible yet well within the realm of feasibility, all I could think was, “mother-F-ing badass.” Dude, seriously? Pulling the richest man in Hong Kong out of the country and right off his own building with never even passing through customs? Totally badass. Wrecking your badass Tumbler, then having it eject you onto a super badass Tumbler motorcycle? No one can be prepared for that. I am sure every fanboy seeing that for the first time had his or her jaw drop to the ground, as mine did.
Batman’s gadget’s were totally incredible. Just the sound effects on them alone had the person sitting next to me “whoa-ing” out loud. And Batman just jumping off a building is still as badass as it ever was.
And then the mental mind blowing kicks in. The whole audience was like, “oh HELL NO” when we all collectively realized the Joker had lied about which location Rachel was really at. That moment, and it’s consequences, elevated DARK KNIGHT way, way beyond the level of BATMAN BEGINS. They are not even comparable movies.
Of course everyone talks about Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker. I was liking it, but not seeing where the overwhelming gushing over it was really warranted, until the Joker was captured at the midway point. Then when he did his most damage to the characters in the film by being in police custody, doing the most damage while Batman exerted his maximum effort to save someone, that is when I could see and fall in line with the universal praise for the performance, if not the writers of the film (Christopher Nolan, also the director, and his brother).
Now I do believe what stopped this movie from being an unflawed masterpiece was the twin bombs on boats conundrum at the end, which I have since learned has been criticized by other people. I like how it was resolved by the people on the boats, but it felt a bit too much like what I imagine these recent torture movies are like (which I will never watch in my life). Of course this was not a graphic scene at all, but just the gruesome, macabre thought of it all put me off a bit. And the special effects make-up on Two-Face was a bit much. I still keep in mind what that character looked like in Batman: The Animated Series and was expecting that!
Still, I was not expecting plot twists in a Batman movie, and especially not ones that were so incredibly effective. Come the final scene, after there have been real consequences for all characters, least of which Batman himself, the movie hits home so hard, and so dark, but with understanding, that all I could do was sit back in my seat and just appreciate the experience Christopher Nolan gave me, and felt awed.
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I saw it while I was home, and while I agreed that it was an amazing movie experience, the joker’s plotting seemed to rely on just too many coincidences upon later review. For him to have pulled off everything he did means he needed to know that everything was going to go exactly his way.
For instance, how could he have known that batman would throw him into the glass window and break a piece? Or that they would not re-cuff him when batman left? Or that Batman would show up in the first place? Afterward there were a lot of little things like that which left me thinking “wait a minute…”
Anyway, still a 9 out of 10 star movie. Good times!
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Jason Collin Reply:
August 3rd, 2008 at 11:31 AM
Thanks for your thoughts Jei.
I’m not sure what scene with the Joker and Batman and broken glass you are referring to. I don’t think it would have mattered if the Joker was cuffed or not, he could have still executed that plan. The only thing that gave me slight pause was how he could transport all those barrels of explosives all around and rig them up so quickly, but minor detail.
His brilliance was in his thinking and ability to know exactly what people would do, so I guess I feel he didn’t rely on coincidence too much. He was one step ahead of most people, and for a time, even Batman too.
Still thought it was the masterstroke of the movie to have the Joker lie about the locations of Rachel and Harvey.
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I like it ! some scenes were too violent for me though.
I agree with that the movie was the best comic movie.
The story was kept changing,many things happened so I was concentrated on watching the movie to the end….even though the time was already passed my usual bed time.
I ‘d like to see it again someday.
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Jason Collin Reply:
August 4th, 2008 at 10:54 PM
Thank you for commenting Aya!
I felt the same way you did, I was totally concentrating and gripped by the movie and involved with the story until the very end. The movie hardly gave the viewer a chance to breath, but it wasn’t suffocating either.
Sorry if I squeezed your hand too much during the movie! There were so many badass things happening in the movie I may have gotten too excited!!
Yes, maybe we should go see it again this weekend???
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First off- I loved the movie. It takes a super-hero franchise and does what is really necessary to do- something I feel others in the genre haven’t done or couldn’t do.
The first movie is about the superhero- and Nolan gave us that- Raz Al Gool was there- but he wasn’t a massive screen presence. The main enemy in that movie was Bruce Wayne getting over himself and his fears and commiting to the Bat.
The second and all subsequent movies HAVE to be about the villain- because we’ve for the most part used up the good guy. The villain is the main thing- and the hero bouncing off the villain, finding new tests within the villain and set by the villain, and having to raise his game because of the villain- all that is entirely dependant on the quality of the villain. And what a villain the Joker is!
To me he represents the chaotic madness that comes into play with the death of God and the loss of any form of morality or purpose- a problem which I think is biting at the heels of our society today. Terrorism has a goal sure, fundamentalist terrorists have morality of a type and for a purpose- but I think they have the same mind-set that allows them to utterly dehumanize those that are ‘other’ and destroy them without a second thought.
The Joker just takes this to the ultimate extreme- he doesn’t even care about himself- at one point he’s willing Batman to kill him, he wants to die. He just wants to take out as many people in as interesting a manner as he can. He’s given up on reality and just wants to break stuff.
That’s a terrifying villain, because it’s a slippery slope into a madness we could all slide into, and we can all imagine.
The other brilliant thing about this Batman franchise so far is that it feels like it could be real. There is no radioactive goop or aliens or gamma radiation (yet). There are just bad people, good people, and a lot of weaponry and high-tech (but believable) gear. This was aided by the minimal use of CG in the movie. This could be New York or any other major city- this Joker is not so dissimilar to Osama Bin Laden in his skill at planning atrocities and disregard for life, at using the infrastructure of the city against itself.
All that makes this a truly prescient and appropriately dark movie for our times.
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Jason Collin Reply:
August 5th, 2008 at 11:15 PM
Yes, I wonder what silver screen villains can even compare to Heath Ledger’s Joker? Rogert Ebert mentioned a few in his DARK KNIGHT, but some were too old school for me (haven’t seen them, and not from my time) and I never was that impressed with Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector.
IMDB said Ledger spent a month in a hotel room alone to prep for the role as the Joker, where he worked out the mannerisms, and ticks, and the voice.
Also, DARK KNIGHT is #1 on IMDB’s top 250 already.
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This movie just started awesome and never let up. I was literally tense and on the edge of my seat the whole time.
Finally a comic book adaption that got everything right! It’s like Chris Nolan asked me personally how I’d like the movie to go, what I did and didn’t want to see, etc.
Every actor in this movie played their part to perfection, but Heath Ledger still stole the show. I guess I never really saw any of his earlier stuff, or if I did I didn’t pay much attention, but during the movie I kept thinking to myself, ‘damn, where did this guy come from?’ I remember Jack Nicholson being a fairly decent Joker, but Heath Ledger is in a whole other dimension. Every scene with him in it was pure gold. His voice, his lines, his facial expressions were spot on, hypnotic even.
The scene where Batman extracted that Chinese guy out of Hong Kong was perhaps one of the best scenes in action movie history. It was one of the only times I actually shouted out in a movie theater in my life. What made it so good was that the stuff they did seemed so plausible, so realistic. None of thie Mission Impossible silliness, that kind of thing could actually work in real life.
The movie left you no time to ponder realism though, it was just too fast paced, (not a complaint!). However after it was over some of the things they did made me wonder a bit. For example it seems to me that the Chinese government would probably scramble some fighter planes to intercept a military plane flying through the city.
Other things that bothered me a bit after were things like how the Joker constantly had everything ready, was always one step ahead, and seemed to be able to be everywhere at once. Either he is a criminal genius the likes of which the world has never seen, or he’s the luckiest bastard who ever lived. So much of what he did came down to chance. He could’ve been killed by n number of people but managed to avoid it every time.
I also wondered how he kept finding people to work for him when he kept betraying everyone.
Anyway these thoughts still do nothing to change the fact that this movie kicked every ass in the universe.
It was great to see Gary Oldman in a role he could really work with for once. He came across as kind of a wuss in Batman Begins, but manned up a lot in Dark Knight. Glad they gave him some decent screen time as well. Michael Cane also did a great job in his role of bringing some order and stability to Bruce Wayne’s life. Everyone needs a butler like that.
Speaking of Batman Begins, i also watched it to prepare for Dark Knight, and what was obvious to me is how much more superior Dark Knight was. Batman Begins had a strong start, but dragged down near the end as the plot became more and more unrealistic and campy.
Was shocked when they ended Rachel’s life like that, but I should’ve seen it coming. I knew Two Face needed that emotional unbalancing factor on top of his disfiguration to complete his transformation to the villian he is in the comicbook.
Well so much more to say, could talk about every detail of the movie from start to finish but in the end it comes down to one fact. This is the movie of the year. See it on the big screen.
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Jason Collin Reply:
August 5th, 2008 at 11:13 PM
Thanks for the long comment Can.
A few notes……
Bruce Wayne mentioned hiring South Korean smugglers as pilots as they had experience flying under radar, so I guess they flew under radar in HK.
I agree, the Joker did get those barrels of explosives all around the city quickly!
I think he can always find new henchmen because no one knows he kills all his former henchmen because they are dead and can’t say, “Hey, the Joker is a killer boss!”
It is hard to say how many levels DARK KNIGHT is over BATMAN BEGINS, or even what kind of levels. DARK KNIGHT is up in its own rarified air in my mind. Just a completely different thing.
Just a note, UK Mike was yelling out load from the very first scenes!
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Its gone past 400 million dollars here in the US in record time. And I still haven’t seen it. Damn.
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Jason Collin Reply:
August 6th, 2008 at 12:05 AM
Dude! Tornadoes get on it! It’s the most significant genre film event since Episode III!
And it will get harder to avoid spoilers. I hope you didn’t read my review or these comments too much!
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Ok. I will try and go to a late show after the boys are in bed. I purposely avoided reading your review because I do want to see it.
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