The Dark Knight

What is there to say about The Dark Knight which hasn't already been said? It's been one of the most heavily anticipated movies of all time, it's marketing campaign was unlike anything we've seen previously, it was teased for 3 years ever since we saw Batman turn over the Joker card at the end of Batman Begins, it had it's second biggest star die before the movie could be released and, well, it's the god damn Batman!
There's been a million reviews all around the internet for weeks now so this is less of a review and more of an analysis of the film. I must say that this will contain a few  spoilers so if you haven't seen the film yet and don't want to be spoiled I'd stop reading now.

I've personally been following every tidbit of information about this movie for the past 2 years, I put it on a pedestal and openly voiced my opinion that it would be one of my favorite movies ever ... so to say I had high expectations would be an understatement and unless I was lying to myself about how much I enjoyed it then I would say it met every single expectation I had and even surpassed a few. It's not to say that the movie is without fault, there is one major moment involving a new sonar technology that Batman invents that really does jump the shark .. or is that Nuke the Fridge now after Indiana Jones 4? Christian Bale's Batman voice is still incredibly ridiculous and sounds like he needs a butter menthol. Another scene which see's Batman recover fingerprints from bullet shards is also a little hard to swallow, but apart from that I really struggled to find fault.

As has been said over and over it is Heath Ledger's portrayal of The Joker which steals the show. He threw absolutely everything he had into this role, so much so that you barely see it as being acted but just as a living character. This is now by far my favorite screen villain of all time and what is so great about it is that at no point during the film did Ledger's death even occur to me, it didn't overshadow the role and infact after his final scene I began wondering what he would do in a possible 3rd film ... only then did it hit me he wouldn't really be doing all that much. His performance captivates and totally takes you out of reality. He steals every scene he is in and never have I been in a cinema where people were so quiet with him on screen, no hushed whispers, no chocolate wrappers being crumpled. He nailed the character perfectly with a new spin on it, instead of being an out and out "super villain" he was made more into an urban terrorist, something quite relatable in the post 9/11 days.
He did exactly what The Joker is meant to do, make you laugh and then make you feel guilty for laughing case in point - his disappearing pencil trick. It's easily one of the coolest intro's to a character ever. Unlike Jack Nicholson his version of the Joker was funny simply by his delivery of certain lines which otherwise wouldn't be funny. Dressed up as a nurse he visits Gotham's new D.A Harvey Dent in Hospital after he has had his accident. Sitting by Dent's bedside he gives a semi-nervous "Hiiiii" with this tone of "you're probably really mad at me right now aren't you?". Or when he is asked by a member of the mob if he believes he can steal money from the mob and just get out of it alive, the Joker's simple reply of "Yeah", had me laughing for about a minute afterwards.

His stories of how he came to get his scars were fantastic, especially the scene where he circles Rachel Dawes like a wild animal, lots of lip smacking, he truly was terrifying. My favourite scene was him in the interrogation room ... Commissioner Gordon is talking to him in the dark and all you can see is this white face surrounded by darkness, this hovering embodiment of evil.
The character of the Joker is perfect; he is no longer dancing to Prince like Nicholson’s was and fawning over a love interest. This Joker was out to cause chaos. He doesn't care if he lives or dies, he knows he is a new breed of criminal. In his own words he is "ahead of the curve", almost foreshadowing Batman's traditional rogue gallery of villains that may be to come. He is out to give the city a "better class of criminal" and his pet project is Harvey Dent whom he manipulates and tortures to the point of Dent's transformation into Two Face.
Joker loves toying with Batman like the traditional version of the character does, he tells Batman "You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self righteousness and I won't kill you because you're just too much fun, so we're destined to do this forever". If only this were the case, Heath. Thankyou for finally giving me this version of my favourite fictional character.

The movie of course isn't totally about The Joker, the main story arc involves Batman/Bruce Wayne, Jim Gordon, Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes. Harvey Dent is the new face of the war against crime in Gotham. Most people know where his character is eventually headed so actor Aaron Eckhart works hard to win you over to believe that he is a good guy. He does an amazing job at this, he acts like a real politician. Dent is dedicated to cleaning up Gotham's streets, he may use some alternative methods to achieve this but they are effective. By the time he makes the transformation to Two Face you really feel for his character. Two Face is absolutely brutal; the CGI they used is amazing and even incited a "Jesus Christ!" from some guy in the audience upon his reveal. He is very much the backbone of this story, building him up and knocking him down unlike The Joker who has no real story arc and is fully formed upon his first appearance. The only thing that changes with The Joker is his rise to power. He is laughed at by mob members when he first appears and by the end he is such a threat that the National Guard is called in. But had The Joker not been in this film then Eckhart would have stolen the show as Harvey Dent.

There is a lot packed into the plot even for a movie that is 2.5 hours long. Some say that it was too long, to me time flew by and left me wanting more at the end. There is so much going on that it's a bit hard to take it all in at first, the plot is never dull though and even has Batman leaving Gotham for the first time and heading to Hong Kong. There are a couple of twists and turns, the script is a lot better this time around with Chris Nolan's brother Jonathon on board and the action scenes are better directed. The movie really does have a very gloomy tone, if you like your movies with happy endings I'd skip this one. I am usually not one for car chases in movies, they don’t really do much for me, but this one had such a fun one with the Batmobile squaring off against the Slaughtermobile.

There was one very bazaar but hilarious moment when I saw this though. I like Morgan Freeman as much as the next person; I don't think there is anyone who doesn't like Morgan Freeman, that voice is more comforting than your own Grandfather's. But as soon as he made his first appearance in this film some guy up the back of the theatre gives out a big "FUCK YEAH!" which was met by utter silence, followed by roaring laughter. Somehow I just imagine this guy was in the midst of thinking that this was the best movie he had ever seen and was just asking himself how it could possibly get any better when suddenly he was shown how and the sight of Morgan Freeman on screen was just too much for him to contain. Personally when it comes to this film and any other, Morgan Freeman would get his arse handed to him by Michael Caine. Caine doesn't have a heap of screen time but like always he is brilliant and provides a nice bit of comic relief to the movie whilst still being vital to the plot as Bruce Wayne's mentor.

Batman is almost the forgotten character of the movie, but this isn't surprising ... the movie is not really about him alone, the first movie was, but this movie was about The Joker and Harvey Dent. The fact that they chose to not even use the word Batman in the movie's title was a big sign. Infact you could argue the movie is really more about Gotham city itself, the people in it and how they react to the huge outlandish characters that are showing up in it. Filming on location in Chicago was a real big step above the last movie. It gave a feeling that this movie was on a much larger scale than the last. You got the impression that Gotham was a huge, living breathing city rather than the couple of lone streets you saw in the first. The theme of the film certainly is "Escalation", we're shown how far things have come since the first movie right from the start. Scarecrow was a major thorn in Batman's side in the first film. Batman was finding his own feet then. In The Dark Knight Batman disposes of the Scarecrow (who is reduced to selling dodgy drugs out the back of a van) in about 5 minutes.

The movie ends on a very peculiar note whereby the Joker technically could be seen to come away with the win. His actions have forced Batman and Gordon to take out the cities white knight in Harvey Dent, Batman is forced to take the blame for Dent's wrong doings for the greater good, something I'm sure he would prefer not to have to do. Joker being caught at the end isn't exactly a victory for Batman and Gordon, he accomplished what he set out to do and that was incite chaos and to force Batman to break his one rule. This really is the 'Empire Strikes Back' of this series which will mean that 3rd movie (should there be one) will start in a dark place and be an uphill battle for the hero's right from the get go. The biggest problems they will face is should they recast the Joker and how they can possibly top this movie.

Overall this is the best comic book movie I've ever seen and for the first time you don't have to finish the sentence "this film was great" with "for a comic book film".