The Dark Knight

(2008)
review by Head Cheeze

I feel like the last guest at the biggest, bestest party of the millennium; one where all of the good booze is gone and the tastiest vittles have been gobbled up by all those before me. I’ve seen “The Dark Knight”, but all of the best hyperbole has been used up the hundreds of critics who’ve already lavished the film with much deserved praise, leaving me next to nothing by way of clichés, witticisms, or nifty, quote-ready puns with which to work with. The movie’s been dissected, pieced back together, and dissected again with even tinier tools, with every subtle nuance catalogued and chronicled, discussed and debated, leaving nearly every approach of critiquing the film exhausted all in a matter of three days.

Really? What else is there to say?

It’s dark. Very dark. Gone is even the most subtle of comic book stylings – even those brought forth in Batman Begins – replaced with a gritty realism that would seem more befitting an epic crime saga rather than a super hero film. From the opening heist sequence (straight out of Michael Mann’s “Heat”) to the interrogation room showdown between Batman and The Joker, this is some seriously serious stuff, almost devoid of the puns and levity on display in Batman Begins. Sure, we laugh at The Joker’s antics, but it’s mostly in disbelief at the level of depravity to which this psychotic bastard sinks, and, believe you me, no one else around him is even cracking a smile (unless, of course, it’s of the forced variety, thanks to the blade he’s got shoved in their cheek. Wanna know how he got those scars?).  It’s even more terrifying given that Nolan has wisely chosen not to give The Joker any sort of back story. He’s simply chaos on two legs, who does what he does because A) he can, and B) he likes it.

I’m not going to even get into Heath Ledger’s brilliant performance as the Joker, as that’s been done to death. Suffice it to say that, when he’s on the screen, he owns this movie. It’s a performance that is simultaneously triumphant and heartbreaking, and will go down as one of the greatest screen villains in cinema history.  Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent is nearly as well-realized, and the fact that the likeable Eckhart makes Dent such a likeable character makes Dent’s eventual fall from grace all the more effectively tragic. Perhaps lost in all of the hype surrounding Ledger is Christian Bale’s phenomenal turn as Bruce Wayne/Batman. The actor has fully embraced the Batman character’s volatility and brutality, while imbuing Bruce Wayne with a greater sense of depth, despair, and melancholy.

I did have some problems with this film, though. It seems as if Nolan has reinvented his reinvention, as Gotham’s quite a bit different than it was the last go round. Not only has the city changed (Wayne Corp. headquarters is now a faceless skyscraper, and where’s Bruce’s father’s sky-train that was so important in the last film?), but it also seems that Gotham’s atmosphere has changed as well. No longer are the streets enshrouded in fog, and aglow in red and golden hues. Instead, these streets look rather flat and, dare I say, real. I get that Nolan was going for a more realistic tone when he took on the franchise, but I felt that the look of Gotham in Batman Begins struck a perfect balance between the fantastic and the ordinary. With The Dark Knight, the look is certainly grittier, but it's more Chicago (or New York, or St. Louis or Boston) than Gotham.

I was also a bit let down by the film’s final act, as I felt that the Dent/Two-face storyline was given the short shrift, especially in terms of Harvey’s reasoning for doing what he does. Without giving anything away, while I understood his anger, I didn’t buy the impetus for his devolving into the vengeful Two Face, and I especially didn’t buy the motivation that led to the rather anticlimactic showdown between him and Batman.

I’m going to go out on a long, broken limb here and say I still prefer Batman Begins over The Dark Knight, but only because I missed the more stylized look and feel of Begins. As much as I’ve wished for a more realistic version of Batman (prior to Begins, of course) on the silver screen, I’m of the opinion that there’s such a thing as being too real in this genre. While I think that Nolan’s approach here certainly brings an unprecedented amount of darkness and grittiness to a franchise that had for far too long been victimized by the conventions of camp and cartoonishness, I think he does so at the expense of the very reason people flock to see a Batman movie in the first place – for the sheer escapist joy of it. That being said, I still enjoyed the film immensely; I just hope that, for the next one, The Dark Knight gets to lighten up a little.

Hey, look at that. I was able to find a silly, quotable pun after all.