The Dark Knight

From the first scene, I could think only one thing throughout this entire movie.

This ain't your daddy's Gotham.


In 1989, the first feature-length, live-action Batman film was released, and was lauded for its dark tone and the deliciously over-the-top performance by Jack Nicholson as the Joker.

In 1995, Tommy Lee Jones delighted as Harvey Dent in Batman Forever with his delightfully campy and in-your face version of the classic character.

In 2005, Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale finally create a Batman movie where Batman actually felt like the main character, rather than the foil to whatever supervillain was placed opposite him

Now, with The Dark Knight, many things change. The set remains in Chicago from Batman Begins, but it's a much more literal setting as compared to the earlier film. Gotham in Batman Begins is an incredibly dark and savage place complete with tremendous high-rises that leave the viewer feeling trapped within this monstrosity of a city. Everything seems to be in a kind of mist, distorting features and making the city seem even more foreboding.

The Gotham City in The Dark Knight shows off a little more of its shooting location. In the opening shot, the Sears Tower (I'll never call it by its new name) is plainly visible. Later, shots of the Chicago docks and a green Chicago River are quite evident. Even the opening shot of the new Wayne Tower (strangely no longer the impressive Chrysler Building but rather a drab black building) contains a shot of the Standard Oil Building. For a native Chicagoan, this sort of took me out of the film a little bit.

However, having the city shown much more literally, especially in the beginning of the film, shows just how much progress Bruce Wayne has made as the Batman flushing out the criminals in Gotham City. The streets are brighter, buildings are easier to see, and people are walking the streets uninhibited by the gangsters that have long plagued Gotham. Even the first fight scene of the film shows how much progress Wayne has made as he takes down a couple of idiot college boys playing copycat. The new Batcave and Bruce's penthouse are also decidedly upgraded from their iterations in the earlier film. The Batcave is now a secret laboratory underneath the city of Gotham, specifically in the docks of the city. Bruce's penthouse suite is far more modern than the Wayne Manor of the previous film. Fewer sweeping curves, lots more right angles and vertical and horizontal lines. Makes it look like there's been progress.

The returning actors all reprise their roles well. Gary Oldman's Lt. Gordon is particularly well done from the returning cast, showcasing a subtlety and range that Gordon never showed in the previous film. Bale's performance is very nuanced, but at times is just plain cold and unappealing. There are long segments where Bale's face and vocal intonation simply doesn't change, and that needs to be fixed for the next film.

I don't know who did the makeup and costuming in this film, but that person deserves a significant raise for their next role. The new Batsuit seems much more thought out than the version in Batman Begins. Joker's makeup is perfectly erratic at all times, showcasing his insane, irrational mind. Between points where Joker can actually reapply the paint, it scrapes off, it runs, it bleeds, and it does so perfectly to the action surrounding him. Even better is the job done on Dent in the second half of the film. I thought that Tommie Lee Jones's version of Dent was impressively done from a makeup and costuming standpoint, but this new version blows that completely out of the water.

A good comic book movie is nothing without good action scenes, and this one delivers in droves. I count no fewer than 8 extended action scenes, and each can be broken down into numerous segments, starting right at the outset with the first heist. And the action only gets bigger and more dramatic every episode. Trying not to spoil anything, the highlight of the action, much like in Batman Begins, happens in the underground highway system of Gotham. This was one of the most technical and demanding shoots I can possibly think of, and it was done to perfection.

The story moves along very briskly, which I think is one of the downfalls of this movie. During my first viewing, I was worn out by the third act, then realized there was still an hour of movie left to go! Granted, I'm not exactly a big fan of extended movies and pure action scenes, so take this thought with a grain of salt. We get pulled from one major plot point to the next without any real character building, which I can understand as most of the major characters were introduced and perfected in Batman Begins. Some of the plot points can be a little obtuse at times, mostly because it seems like a three hour script was compacted by half an hour. There are some places where the motivation of certain characters is unclear on the first viewing and only truly becomes clear on the second.

This brings me to the part of this movie that everybody is talking about. Heath Ledger as the Joker. Let me say this first: the Joker is not a subtle character. There is no nuance here. He's a psychopath whose only thought is how to best corrupt those around him and how to best create chaos. Nevertheless, Ledger's Joker completely outclasses the Nicholson version in virtually every possible area. His past is left shrouded intentionally because it's not really important to understanding the character. His ruthlessness is unbounded as he corrupts two of the most uncorruptable characters that the writers could come up with. His final sadistic choice for the citizens of Gotham makes the Green Goblin's sadistic choice in 2002's Spiderman seem like child's play. Ledger is perfectly believable as a psychopath, which is a very difficult feat in acting. He's big and showy when appropriate, and subtle when necessary. Two of my favorite sequences in the entire film are completely Ledger's work. In fact, in one of them, I kinda wish that Nolan had done less editing and cross-cutting than he actually did. I wanted to see Ledger just light up the camera, which he did on multiple occasions.

The one thing that I did not like about the script and story of this sequel was the handling of Lucius Fox, Morgan Freeman's character. In Batman Begins, he's Bruce's constant tech adviser while maintaining his distance from Bruce's extracurricular activities. He's not an idiot, he can guess what Bruce is doing with the technology and resources he's pulling from Fox's department. However, he never comes out and says what he thinks, and he maintains his plausible deniability about the Batman. In this film, he basically singlehandedly maintains the new Batcave, and he speaks to both Bruce and Batman in the same scene, confirming completely for himself Batman's identity. The plausible deniability he maintained so fiercely in the first movie is shattered, and I feel that's a mistake for a character so shrewd and intelligent like Lucius Fox.

This is about as close to perfection as a darker, more serious comic book movie can be. In fact, I believe that this film would have been almost as successful if it didn't rely upon the known characters of the Batman universe. The script and production were just done to near perfection at virtually every part in the film. Of course, having the license to Batman can only increase the box office numbers ^_^.

I give this movie 4.5 out of 5 stars.