Short-ish Movie Review: The Dark Knight
It’s long. Let’s get that out of the way right up top. Christopher Nolan’s sequel to his excellent 2005 Batman Begins, The Dark Knight (rejected working titles: Batman in the Middle, Batman Keeps on Keeping On) clocks in at a hefty 2 hour, 32 minute running time that approaches Lord of the Rings level epic. Despite its length, it rarely feels bogged down—though it probably could have benefited from some edits here and there and it veers into territory that Tony and I had both presumed would have been covered in a sequel. Nolan’s The Dark Knight has much in common with Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, which many consider the apogee of that series: free of the shackles of re-imagining the hero’s origin story, Nolan (like Raimi) spends much of the second installment concerned with two main questions—”what does it mean to be a hero?” and “what is a hero’s relationship with the people he protects?” Things go, er, less well for Batman than they do for Spidey, but that’s always been part and parcel of the dark knight’s character. Like in Batman Begins, a fantastic cast of supporting actors (Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman) elevate the movie from mere popcorn flick to dramatic tableau—add to that a solid showing from Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent and a gosh-darned note-perfect performance by the late Heath Ledger as the Joker. Nolan and Ledger have captured the Joker as a character: he’s a wild card, a psychotic force of nature concerned only with sowing chaos.
Some might be concerned with where Nolan’s Batman diverges from its source material (to which, it must be said, the movie is largely if not always faithful)—that, to me, misses the point. The character of Batman has been interpreted by so many different authors and artists over the years that he has become more of a legend, a fairy tale character to be spun for different ages. Nolan has ably captured his Batman—a Batman for the 21st century—in the same way that characters like James Bond or Dr. Who have been constantly re-envisioned for contemporary contexts. What matters (and what makes his films excel) is that Nolan’s vision is internally consistent: his interpretation of characters perfectly fits the story he is telling. At this point, the only worry I have is that Batman 3 (working title: Batman: Batting .1000) might verge into Spider-Man 3, Return of the Jedi territory. History has shown that all we need is Batman taking on a horde of Ewoks to ruin a perfectly good franchise.
6 Comments so far
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I felt like it was kind of overhyped—why do I keep hearing about it referred to as a “masterpiece”?—but a good follow-up to the last one. Also, I’m glad they replaced Katie Holmes, even if it did bother me that Maggie Gyllenhall was playing a character who looks like someone else. Thought the very ending was kind of stupid, but liked how things resolved with the Joker, anyway.
By Jason on 07.28.08 1:19 am
Really? I kind of enjoyed the very end. I guess I felt like it did a good job of solidifying Batman’s relationship with the public…
By Dan on 07.28.08 7:56 am
People who dislike spoilers should probably have stopped reading by now…
From the perspective of thematic setup, I can see why it made sense to venerate Dent and crucify Batman. But from the perspective of simple plot points, it just made no sense. It doesn’t look like most of the police were in on it, so sooner or later someone has to question, “Wait, why did Batman kill those people? And what was he doing to Gordon and his family anyway? And why would he go out of his way deliver a dude from Hong Kong to the Gotham police, stop the Joker, save innocent people from misguided SWAT teams (who then realized what was going on), and then go kill a bunch of cops and harass Jim Gordon?”
I realize I’m asking for realism in a movie about people who dress up as bats and clowns, but the rest of the movie seemed very concerned with explaining the rationale behind its plot points. Then at the end it just kind of gave up.
By Jason on 07.28.08 9:56 am
I think what I took away from it was the central question of the ends justifying the means: is it okay for one man to take the law into his own, even to do good? At the end of the day, by letting himself be vilified (though, as you point out, not particularly sensibly—then again, I’m not sure that “sensible” and the public really go together) and leaving Dent to be glorified, he was making a point that it needed to be the people of the city, standing up for law and order, who made the change in Gotham—not one dude in a cape and mask. And it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me to suggest that the public is rarely privy to the full details of what exactly Batman’s doing—perhaps all they really see are a couple of crazy guys in costumes duking it out and using their city as a battlefield.
The reason I enjoyed that was because I thought it made such a contrast to the idea of characters like Spider-Man, who have such a different relationship with the people they protect (not universally, but Spidey certainly gets a lot more love from his fans than Batman does).
I guess I’m also much less bothered by plot holes, especially in the favor of overarching themes. :) Ah well, to each their own!
By Dan on 07.28.08 10:12 am
It though it felt a little tacked on so as to setup for the next movie. The whole killing off of Two Face in general seemed a little odd and abrupt though Two Face is kind of a ridiculous character once you get beyond the origin story.
By tony on 07.29.08 10:38 am
By cIL on 07.31.08 10:48 pm
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