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With Knight comes the darkness
Star rating: ****
Dir: Christopher Nolan
With: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Caine
Just as night must follow day, it is now obligatory for troubled heroes to descend further into the dark with each picture. Even boy wonder Harry Potter is on the down escalator of bleakness, every movie aiming to be gloomier and more perilous than the last.
Christopher Nolan, whose Batman Begins started the legend of the caped crusader with a terrified child at the bottom of a well, was never going to use the follow-up to take Bruce Wayne's alter ego to whatever unexplored corner of Gotham hosts sunlit uplands. The Dark Knight is of course cloaked in shadow for another reason: the death of one of its stars, Heath Ledger, in January this year.
Ledger's performance as The Joker has led to calls for a posthumous Oscar. He is brilliant, certainly worthy of a nomination, yet he is just one part of a fabulously assembled picture. Nolan's movie stands at the point where pop art meets awesomeness to create high octane, high IQ entertainment.
See the movie on an IMAX screen if you can. Nolan has made film history by shooting six sequences with IMAX cameras, the first time this has been done for a mainstream feature film. The result is a bigger, sharper, more intense experience. You don't so much watch parts of The Dark Knight as get thrown headlong into them, particularly the don't-look-down skyscraper scenes.
The difference IMAX makes can immediately be seen in the opening minutes. A gang of robbers wearing clown masks is attempting to rob a mob bank. A brutal, exhilarating, and finely-crafted sequence, its most thrilling moment is the first sight of The Joker.
A character almost as famous as Batman himself, many have tried but few have nailed the hoaxer from Hades. Jack Nicholson came close, but underneath the make-up and the vaguely sinister air, he was plainly still good ole Jack. Ledger has taken a blowtorch to the character, physically and morally, turning him into the ultimate anarchist, an agent of chaos. As Michael Caine's Alfred, Batman's faithful butler/surrogate father, puts it: "Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn." Or as The Joker himself says: "I'm a dog chasing cars."
As a man who recognises no rules, he will prove Batman's strongest foe. Whether it was the IMAX effect or a new, improved outfit, Christian Bale's Batman seemed broader and more solid this time, his voice a low growl, like that of a bear with a headache. The Joker is that headache.
Having done a deal with Gotham's criminal fraternity to bring down Batman, The Joker launches all-out war against the flying felon-catcher, his cop pal, Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) and new district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), the white knight to Batman's darker creation. Taking over from Katie Holmes as Rachel, the damsel in the mix, is the far more intriguing Maggie Gyllenhaal.
There's a temptation, as with so many contemporary thrillers, to see The Dark Knight, with its themes of good versus evil, men colliding with the limits of morality, as another take on the post-9/11 world. Nolan (Memento, The Prestige) certainly nods to this, whether it's calling the Joker a "terrorist" or using hostage-style videos to send messages to Batman.
At one point he has Batman standing among the smoking girders of a bombed building: our hero at Ground Zero. The attempt to crowbar in such references is among the least successful aspects of the movie, together with an overcrowded plot and 152-minute running time. Batman soars or sinks on action and characters; fortunately Nolan's picture excels on both counts.
Though it comes with 33 coats of Hollywood gloss, The Dark Knight, like its predecessor, employs the best of British in its dry wit, emphasis on character, and attempts at high, faux-Shakespearean drama.
Combine this with Ledger's performance, an awards-laden technical team, an Oscar-worthy score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, and everything a first-rate blockbuster needs is present and correct.
Over everything hangs the promise of bounty to come and, it has to be said, a sense of loss. The franchise will go on, but without Ledger. Among the many moments to take your breath away in The Dark Knight (what Nolan does with an 18-wheeler truck is worth the admission price alone), is a simple line from Ledger. "I think you and I are destined to do this forever," the Joker says to Batman. If only.
12:04am Thursday 24th July 2008
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CommentPosted by: Los Angeles, Edinburgh on 9:49am Thu 24 Jul 08
It is too long by 40 minutes, it is inflated by its self-importance, it is crammed with cliched dialogue, some scenes are so dark you cannot see what is happening, and your butt will get numb.
Ledger gives the same lip-smacking interpretation scene after scene without any character arc. As the reviewer above says:[quote]It comes with 33 coats of Hollywood gloss[/quote]
But it is entertaining, albeit mindless. About all you will remember a day later is Batman's cool V12 motorbike and his cape whip-cracking as he drives it.
It is too long by 40 minutes, it is inflated by its self-importance, it is crammed with cliched dialogue, some scenes are so dark you cannot see what is happening, and your butt will get numb.
Ledger gives the same lip-smacking interpretation scene after scene without any character arc. As the reviewer above says:
It comes with 33 coats of Hollywood gloss
But it is entertaining, albeit mindless. About all you will remember a day later is Batman's cool V12 motorbike and his cape whip-cracking as he drives it.
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