Review: The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight, well what can I say about it overall? I'd say it's a stunning film. I remember walking out the cinema after Batman Begins and being totally blown away by how cool a job Christopher Nolan had done, and it's no different with The Dark Knight. There are so many great scenes it's nigh on impossible to pick any single one as being the best.

Almost everyone has been raving about the amazing of performance of Heath Ledger as the villainous Joker, and I have to agree with them. You've probably seen the Tim Burton Batman movie - if so you'll remember the performance of Jack Nicholson as being a believable one of a madmen. Heath Ledger's performance I believe puts his to shame. One of the best moments for the Joker is his "magic trick" where he says he can make the pencil disappear and then proceeds to slam it into one of the mobsters eye. It's a sadistic, crazy thing for the Joker to do - but it's great, and the delivery of it just shows what a nutjob the Joker is - and again it's believable.

In the old films (2 by Tim Burton, and the terrible 2 by Joel Schumacher) they constantly redesigned the bat-suit and the batmobile for no apparent reason other than to try and make them look cooler. In TDK they don't do this, if there's a change there's a reason for it. Fans of Batman Begins commented on the batsuit being too bulky in it making it hard for Batman to turn his head - this was the only major complaint people seemed to have about the film, so in TDK the bat suits been redesigned to make it more mobile. This time it's explained by Batman finding it hard to turn his neck to see things coming (when he's attacked by dogs). We also see the introduction of the Batpod which turns out to be an escape pod for the Batmobile when it is destroyed by the Jokers attack in a lorry.

As with Batman Begins parallels with the Frank Miller version of the Batman origin story, The Dark Knight draw parallels with Jeph Loeb's "The Long Halloween" which told the tale of Batman, Commishoner Gorder, and DA Harvey Dent working together to bring down the mob bosses in Gotham until they retaliate against Harvey, scarring him both mentally and physically - turning him into the criminal Two-Face.

I found Nolan's interpretation of Two-Face to be believable as something that could actually happen to a person in real life due to the way it's told, and the way he is scarred. I did however find it surprising that they apparently killed Two-Face off at the end of the film - I'd assumed they'd keep him alive for possible reoccurrences. The death of villains is something I always found to be a mistake in the previous Batman films. Again the conclusion of the villains is similar to Batman Begins in which Scarecrow (who also appears briefly in TDK) survives and is sent to either Arkham Asylum or Blackgate prison (whichever they have in the Nolan-verse) and Ra's al Ghul is killed (though from the comics we know he can be ressurected by the Lazarus pits which he'd been using to sustain his life for hundreds of years). In TDK it is Joker who survives to be sent to Arkham, and Two-Face who dies.

I really can't fault the film and definately recommend watching it, even if it's only on DVD (when it's released).

Rating: 5/5