No spoilers, but I know some people who do not want to know anything going in to the movie, so below the fold we go.
The Dark Knight was as good as or better than Batman Begins — in its own way. This is a significant point because it is a different sort of movie in significant ways, despite the return of director Christopher Nolan and most of the cast of the franchise reboot.
As for the new cast members, the talk about Heath Ledger getting a posthumous Oscar nomination for his take on the Joker seems like a stretch to me.  However, Ledger does give a fine performance, transcending Jack Nicholson’s 1989 star turn. Ledger’s Joker is filled with the true psychpathology and terror this script demanded. Terror is a key theme here, as Nolan raises some very contemporary themes in the movie, though not in a didactic way, or even a particularly Hollywood way — which is as it should be.
Some may find that Gotham City resembles Chicago too much in this sequel, in the sense that it is far less stylized than the Gotham of Batman Begins — no futuristic train or specially dressed sets like the Narrows. But the more realistic version of Gotham seen here serves Nolan’s directorial intent, heightening the horror aspects of the script. There is an interesting parallel here — unconscious or otherwise — with some of the themes of Brian DePalma’s (and David Mamet’s) adaptaion of The Untouchables, given that a number of key scenes were shot on the very same block of LaSalle Street DePalma used for the scenes where Malone leads Ness on the liquor raid and where Ness charges into Capone’s hotel.
Nolan and Maggie Gyllenhaal do what they can to make Rachel Dawes more than a damsel in distress, though they did not sell me on her relationship with Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent enough early in the film to get the full impact the movie tries to draw from it. Perhaps I should fault Eckhart, who I have liked in some roles, but who never seemed to define Dent. Perhaps I should fault the script, which never fully presents an integrated portrait of Dent to better serve his character arc.
Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine do their usual things with the smaller roles they get here, though Freeman gets a particularly choice scene. Gary Oldman also excels, though he could probably excel reading the phonebook. They could have had more to do if the script did not include a section that takes us outside Gotham for some thrilling action, but which might have been done more economically within the city limits.
These are quibbles, of course — and The Dark Knight is probably critic-proof. However, that probability may make it all the more gratifying that Nolan & Co. took more risks than they needed and that those risks generally pay off for the audience.
I just got not get over the racism of the title Dark Knight.
Well that post makes me look retarded. That will teach me to post before I have had my 3rd cup of coffee.
When Hollywood is free then I might watch whatever it has to offer; until then, it is against my nature to fund useful idiocy.
Another flick on my ‘hurry up and release the stinkin’ DVD!’ list.
No useful idiocy can keep me from seeing Christian Bale in the Batman costume. While I’ll happily avoid the worst offenders, if I chucked the work of everyone who supports BDS and similar, I’d have nothing to listen to – the music industry is just as bad as Hollywood.
I hated that part where Batman dies at the end. And Andy Dick as Robin? Puh-lease.
Oops . . . *spoiler warning* and all that.
kthanx
I want to see it at the theater – big screen and all – but then I have to remember that CHILDREN would be accompanying me. Their soda/more popcorn/I gotta go to the potty stuff would interfere with my enjoyment of
the movieChristian Bale in a batman costume.I usually don’t go see things in the theater, but I think I’ll make an exception for this one and see it in IMAX.
IMAX movies usually make me a bit nauseous.
Comment by Benedick on 7/18 @ 6:45 am
Well, scratch that one off my list.
Comment by Pablo on 7/18 @ 6:52 am
I’ve watched maybe 5, 10 movies while suffering in a theater so far this decade. The three LTRs, one of the Bond flicks, and of course Borat. Twice. Loved that one.
I remember with great detail some of the surrounding audience members…the unknown unfortunate who decided just that week to try the new kidney bean and cabbage diet; all those parents without babysitters; oh. and the cell phones (and, answered, the conversations…”Look in the f*cking PANTRY!”)
No thoughts on Christian Bale?
serr – I think he was joking.
As for movie theaters – well, I find if you go to the movie a few weeks after it’s been released, and the early show (like, 11 in the morn) the theater is often pretty empty. Empty enough that if you find yourself next to a cabbage eater, you can move.
He’s HOT, Barney. What else is there to know?
I was dragged to Hellboy II last week but was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Very surreal and funny. Stoners would love it.
With Hellboy, Iron Man, and Dark Knight, this is proving to be a great movie summer.
They’re just not good people.
Carin, all three movies are terrific. Except for the parts where Hellboy, Iron Man and Batman die at the end.
*spoiler warning*
I felt Michael Moore’s cameo in Hellboy was a bit preachy.
Carin,
One of the reasons I do my regular web thing was because my friends with young kids would ask me if certain movies were okay for them. In that spirit, I would note that DK is more intense than the first. Not much more graphically violent, but definitely a scarier pic. There’s a guy who catches on fire at one point, for example.
Alp, I did too — but at least he died at the end.
…of his cameo. Which thankfully occurred before the opening credits.
I would rather give my monies to Dan than those Warner Bros. people. They’re mean.
With this spate of summer movies in which the protagonists die at the end, I suddenly wonder whether we might be treated to “An Inconvenient Truth II”.
(Apocalyptic Boogaloo.)
Oh, right Karl. I know I heard that the movie was intense. But, the worst offender of movie-bothering-me is old enough to handle that stuff. She’s just still young enough to be a tad irritating at the movies.
I DREAM of the day when I can go to a movie w/o having to miss a bit with potty breaks. My oldest three can go it alone. YEA. I figure I’ve got another four years of “movie potty duty.”
Now, in true geek style – in a battle between Hellboy, Batman, and Ironman … who would win?
Nobody wins, Carin. They need to learn to respect their differences.
Downey would use his charm, get in close, then put his considerable shanking experience to good use.
The full frontal nude cameo from Raquel Welch was a shocker in Ironman. She is holding up pretty well.
The shitty reviewer from shitty Slate says that in the end, Batman fucks up Gotham city just like Geo Bush fucked up America.
Is this just galloping BDS or is there an element of that in the movie?
Gray,
Not to spoil anything, but I think it is safe to say that Glenn Greenwald won’t like this movie. And that the Slate interpretation is not necessarily the only interpretation of the contemporary elements I mentioned.
I’m a bit puzzled. I watched the movie and I’ve read a lot of comics. I don’t remember the Joker having the mutant power to teleport explosives wherever he wanted to.