The Dark Knight
(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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As discussed in our review of Hancock, a sprinkling of real-world grit is fairly commonplace in a superhero movie these days and while Batman Begins did a fair job of that, attributing the hero’s abilities to a spell of martial arts training and providing a Batmobile so obviously a development for the military, its sequel The Dark Knight really makes life hard for itself by taking a stab at re-crafting such potentially ridiculous creations as the Joker and Two-face as real characters. But here’s the twist: it succeeds.
In contrast with Hancock, this almost takes on too much in the way of story and ends up being on the lengthy side, but long films are less of a problem when they grip the attention and don’t let go. Of course, the main feature that really has you sitting up and paying attention is Heath Ledger’s Joker, surely the scariest, most convincing villain in clown make-up ever.
Gone is the flamboyant and theatrical madcap comic-book character so wonderfully brought to life by Jack Nicholson, and in his place we have this brutal, brilliantly twisted psychopath who commands the screen (even, dare I say it, appearing in a nurse’s outfit!) whenever he’s on it – and, with his ‘jokes’ generally taking the form of sadistic social experiments, makes his presence felt substantially when he’s not.
The way in which Two-Face’s origin story is threaded through all this is pure craft, a truly gruesome (faint-hearted, be warned) looking villain emerging from one of these social experiments of the Joker’s and a hard, hard choice made by Batman himself. In fact, the movie is something of a social experiment at heart, all about the extremes we might be expected to tolerate in the face of a threat and the extent to which we still view Batman as a hero come the end.
Politically speaking, that might make for some uncomfortable viewing for some, but Morgan (appropriately named) Freeman stands up for our civil rights and draws the line at phone tapping and, when it comes to ‘necessary evils’ I’m more comfortable with the idea of Batman out there beating up bad guys than I am with George W Bush doing the same, allegedly for my protection. But I only mention this to illustrate the adult themes and nature at work here, mainly because it boggled the mind to see toys and kid-friendly merchandise in the window of Woolworths timed to coincide with the film’s release. The kids may enjoy seeing Batman duff up the bad guys, but this movie struck me as not only too violent but a little too ‘cerebral’. But don’t worry, it’s a film with more than enough top-grade action to entertain at least as much as it makes you think.
Downsides: well, for continuity’s sake, we perhaps could have done with Katie Holmes reprising her role in place of Maggie Gyllenhall, but she does a capable job as the love interest; and Two-Face’s opportunity to shine as a villain is all too brief, but the emphasis is very much on the tragedy rather than the villainy. And besides, as I think I might have mentioned, this really is the Joker’s movie and in the end the greatest shame is that we won’t be seeing his return.