The Dark Knight

jq · Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 1089

As everyone has said, and as everyone expects, Heath Ledger does steal the show on Batman The Dark Knight. Good thing, because without him Nolan's vision of Batman would have been about as depressing, and boring as Batman Begins. Small Spoiler:It is also very ironic, in a sad sort of way, because for once in a Batman movie they do not kill off the villian. Meaning the next Batman may have also featured Joker again, if only for a small cameo. Ironic because this time, in real life, Ledger died Sad

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If it wasn't for the the Joker, I would have hated this movie as much as I did Batman Begins. With Joker, it ends up being a pretty decent movie, albeit overrated. While it disappoints me that everything these days has to be dark and shocking to be 'good' or appreciated, I will say the movie is dark and does shock, and does it very well. I certainly never cringed for Tim Burton's version of Batman, nor Joel Schumaker, but then again, they didn't set the records this one did in the box office.

I have noticed that current movies have a certain hype to live up to as the current money makers. They have to have MORE effects, MORE violence, MORE action, and noticeably, MORE length. The old Batman of 1989 with Jack Nicholson was 126 minutes long, and that seemed a bit long. The Dark Knight is 152 minutes long. Way too long I'd say though the 2 and a half hours doesn't show nearly as bad as some movies. But it could have been condensed to 2 hours or maybe even 110 minutes without becoming too short. There was certainly enough excess to trim that wouldn't hurt the meat of the movie. To do so though may have given less of an experience to the die-hard fans who want the experience to be as long as possible.

It will be interesting to see where it goes from here. When this one featured Harvey Dent I thought that certainly meant batman 3 would feature Two-Face. But Two-Face was pretty much already featured in The Dark Knight! So, will it be the Riddler, The Penguin, Iceman, or someone the mainstream is less familiar to grace the third movie?

Aside from Ledger's awesome performance the movie's acting was only so-so. Certainly not better than predecessors. I remember two-face as Tommy Lee Jones, and Aaron Eckhart certainly did NOT do a better job. (Pretty good, but not great.) And it seems a little weird to replace a character with a different actor in the same series, as they did with Maggie Gyllenhaal. While Christian Bale does an okay job (even though I like Val Kilmer AND Michael Keaton as Batman more) his VOICE IS TERRIBLE AS BATMAN. I immediately was like "you've got to be kidding," when I heard him talking as Batman. Embarrasing, LOL.

Anyway, good movie, GREAT performance from Heath Ledger, but aside from his performance the movie is a bit overhyped. Not the greatest acting performances (outside of Ledger) and certainly too long and too many twists for my taste. A good movie no less. It should be, since it set a fucking RECORD!

3/4*