No really, why so serious?
Batman returns, along with his sidekicks: butler Alfred, Lieutenant Gordon and employee Lucius Fox, to do battle with a new enemy who calls himself The Joker (the late Heath Ledger). Batman also teams up with celebrity district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) who is miffed that The Joker interrupted his plan to weed out all of Gotham City’s crime syndicates. But they realised too late that The Joker is unlike any criminal they’ve ever dealt with before, whose motivation is, according to Alfred, “to see the world burn.” Ethics are challenged, sacrifices are made, and people are killed.
As if the themes in Batman Begins weren’t heavy enough, director Christopher Nolan ups the ante by making the Cape Crusader’s longtime arch nemesis some sort of Bond-villain-like intellectual terrorist out to prove a point instead of making a buck. There’s just no stopping a bad guy who doesn’t operate by any rules whatsoever, even criminal ones, unless you start breaking some rules yourself. Sounds a little too similar to real world issues, right? But the added level of sophistication in the storyline works in favour of the movie, giving us a little more to chew on than the usual beat-up-the-bad-guy-and-save-the-world superhero routine, although you still have that eventually in The Dark Knight.
Still, for a superhero movie, The Dark Knight is depressing as hell, especially if you’ve just seen the far lighthearted Iron Man or Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. Most of what little humour the movie has came from The Joker, and even those were of the morbid kind. I can appreciate the quality in the story, and in the scary-thrilling set pieces such as the Michael Mann inspired chase sequence, and The Joker’s own rendition of The Prisoner’s Dilemma. Just like I appreciated the level of documentary-like realism achieved in Saving Private Ryan’s action sequences, though harrowing they may be. But I can’t understand how people could re-watch either multiple times and find “enjoyment” in the experience. Though the action has improved a little over Batman Begin’s severely Bourned action scenes, most of it aren’t stuff you haven’t seen before, and not the kind that could hold up in repeated viewings. Nevertheless, great performances from an absolutely stellar cast of actors, especially from Eckhart and Ledger, that’s definitely worth your attention. Just don’t walk into this one on a bad day; The Dark Knight will surely blot out whatever glimmer of hope that's left in your heart. - BMF
Directed by Christopher Nolan (The Prestige, Batman Begins) and screenplay by Jonathan (The Prestige, Memento) and Christopher Nolan, based on a story by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer. Starring Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy and Eric Roberts. Based on the characters created by Bob Kane. |
