The Dark Knight
Disclaimer: i say what i want, and mean what i say. If you are easily offended i wouldn’t read this. If you do and are still offended, i have one question for you: Why So Serious?
As far as films of the summer go- The dark knight was one title i was very eager to see. Sequels in the superhero genre (NB i am aware that in the grand scheme of things, Batman is a vigilante, not a super hero like superman, but for this exercise he is) run the risk of ruining the series. The example i am going to use is spiderman, which was actually really good, and then spiderman 2- which was piece of sh*t floating in a sea of vomit…. and sh*t.
Dont get me wrong SM 2′s story wasn’t bad- it just lacked the appeal of the first one. What made the first one good was the learning curve that we experienced with Maguire. The humour in the first one was balanced by the drama. In 2 however it just lost it. WIllem Defoe was brilliant casting as the green goblin, but Alfred Molina’s performance as Doc Oc was a little lack lustre. (I am sure it comes as no suprise that i am a bit of a geek, and have read the odd comic or two. I thought that Molina’s Oc wasn’t frantic enough. The man looses his wife and his mind because of his dreams. He just wasnt sinister enough.) and the term Lack Lustre sums up the rest of the SM series: DO NOT GET ME STARTED ON SPIDERMAN 3!!!!!
Anyway, back to the point. sequels have a tendancy to be complete (Insert own favourite insult here, mine is Flange) and the batman series is all too aware of the risk of the campness. Thank god for Christopher Nolan. He has single handedly saved batman from the weak wristed grip of Joel Schumacher and George Clooney. Whoever decided to nipples on robin needs hanging upside down from a tree and beaten with the bat stick until his dinner drips out of his eyes.
The Dark Knight (TDK) opens with a more than satisfactory bank job, which is capped off nicely with our first glimpse of Heaths (RIP) Joker. Until i saw the film, i simply refused to believe that anyone could beat Nicholsons performance. But after seeing TDK and going back to Batman (Tim Burton) i am completely in awe of Heath’s performance. Not only was the voice amusing, with a menacing growl to it, his tick (the lip licking bit) was phemomenal! i dont usually blow smoke up someones arse so much, but if Heath (God rest his genius soal) was still here, it would take the Bat Pod to detach me.
Hang on just a bleeding minute! what about Aaron Eckhart? Despite what people think- the film is about Harvey blummin Two face! And if people cant help cry when they see a Knight with a tale or a box of Candy stick-(See what i did there?!) please skip this next part. i have a question on my mind- and part of me doesnt know if i should ask this but here it is: Would the hype about Heaths performance been as great if he hadnt died? Now i dont have a geniune opinion about this because the fact is that my conscience doesnt dare. However i do believe that his death made the film more popular. (I also cant be bothered to look at Box Office stats so i dont know how much money it made- its sad enough i am writing a blog, so i dont want to become much more of a loser. if you wanna look- feel free) But again back to my point- the joker was just a catalyst for the rise and fall of Harvey Dent, but that fact seems to have dimished somewhat due to Heaths untimely demise.
This aside, the film was amazing. The action scenes were something to be really admired, and unlike many modern films that substitute CGI and action for storyline, TDK developed well and i felt that you could really empathise with the characters. Saying that (Sigh) they only thing that let this aspect of the film down was Bale’s Batman. In Batman Begins, he was rough and and made mistakes- He was human. But in TDK i felt that he lacked the energy that Batman should. The Joker is supposed to bring out the worst in Batman. But it just wasnt there- he wasn’t frantic, or angry, or even risky. He lacked a human side in this film.
i dont like to give star ratings but if i was guna give one for TDK it would be 9 out of 10. The only thing that let it down was the Batman.
