The Dark Knight - Review

(Christopher Nolan, 2008)

Following on from the international success that was Batman Begins, British director Christopher Nolan continues his revision of the caped vigilante Batman with The Dark Knight. Unlike the microcosm of Nolan's first foray, which worked basically as an origins story, filling in the background as to why and how Bruce Wayne, Batman's alter ego, choose a life of fighting crime from the shadows', The Dark Knight casts its net wider to implicate the ramifications of a society in decay.

Long gone are the campy musings of Joel Schumacher, or the cartoonesque romanticism of Tim Burton, no room for nipple accommodated bat-suits or Prince soundtracks here. Batman now reflects the dark, brooding presence often associated in the graphic novel adaptations of Jeph Loeb, Frank Miller and Alan Moore, amongst others. Ambitious and epic, The Dark Knight is something of an opus, the 'Godfather' of superhero adaptations, a musing of the darker side of human nature, of how close a man must skirt the boundary of good and evil for the 'greater good', of duality, of what constitutes a good man.


Large themes indeed in what should be, by summer season standards, an open invitation for popcorn fodder, the brainless blockbuster and the family film, all of which The Dark Knight was (over) marketed at but doesn't neatly fall into any one of these cosy demographics. Large themes call for a large palette and The Dark Knight has that in spades, Gotham for instance, our heroes home and, without doubt, as luminary and significant as Batman himself, has never looked this grandiose, the city's landscape, filmed on IMAX technology, filling the screen with chrome, glass and smog.

Set some time after the events of the previous film, we join The Dark Knight at a crossroads , having helped clear Gotham city of it's criminal element with the remaining mobsters being forced underground, Batman (Christian Bale) continues in the vain hope that he's making a difference but in reality the city needs more than a masked vigilante; something the opening scene does well to address with it's array of copy-cat crusaders.


On opposing forces, two new bucks stride into town, one a white knight of hope and change, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), a young, clean cut council man running for town mayor, the other, a sociopath, amoral and demonic, a man with no background or agenda, other than 'to watch the world burn', called 'The Joker' (Heath Ledger); both of whom want to challenge and shake up the status quo, one for the good of the city, for the good of the people, the other, just to cause as much mayhem and madness as he possibly can.

Nolan, along with his brother Jonathan Nolan, once again take up the writing reins and have delievered a dark and complex film, successfully transporting the theatrical comical elements in to a real world template. It's this 'realism' that really sets The Dark Knight, and Batman Begins, apart from it's contemporary 'comic book adaptations' that seem to litter the cinema screens these days. By setting Batman in a world we, almost, recognise it becomes all the more threatening and disturbing, The Joker, despite his OTT attire, outlandish, fiendish plans and make-up, becomes an everyday evil that we, unfortunately, relate to.


How depressing it is then to relate to a film that paints our society with broad nihilistic brush strokes, full of casual violence, polluted by an apathetic, fearful society ready to put one over the next guy. It's a damning portrait of society today but The Dark Knight does have it's bright side, apart from Batman's constant stab at vigilante justice, Harvey Dent is attempting to put the entire mob behind bars whilst cleaning up the city, Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldham) is his man on the front line, a fine upstanding family man trying to do the right thing and Rachael Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) a bombastic, feisty young district attorney, torn between her love for Wayne and Dent, attempts to fight the mob in court.

It's against this backdrop, that 'The Joker', a criminal mastermind, makes his move, willing to take out these forces of good, for a price and for the sheer pleasure it will bring him. For 'The Joker' is an agent of chaos, willfully destroying and testing those around him, forcing all involved to make moral decisions, pushing their resolve and their limits of empathy. The Joker acts as a barometer, a measure,a symbol, to what depths society would reduce itself to in order to serve their own selfish needs, wants and desires, if chaos was allowed to rule. It's a repeated motif throughout The Dark Knight and one that serves the main narrative, tough decisions and morally questionable actions are constantly having to be made, giving the audience tough, unrelenting answers in the process.


So dark then? And some. However, the relentless regurgitation of these underlying themes, the senseless, endless, brooding (Christian Bale has mastered the pout) and pontificating, felt extremely heavy-handed, as if I was being repeatedly bashed over the head by it all. At two and a half hours this can begin to feel rather laboured, I shifted uncomfortably in my seat actually willing for the ending, not because I was no longer enjoying it but rather that I had seen enough, someone should have been strong enough to omit several unnecessary drawn out scenes and given it a tighter edit.

Overall, not your average run of the mill, normal summer blockbuster, although it still delivers the obligatory thrills and spills with some nice set pieces; you can't help feeling that action scenes aren't exactly Nolan's forte, but still an extravaganza all the same. Doom ladened, nihilistic and morose; Heath Ledgers untimely death helps to lend the film a sinister and fateful air, The Dark Knight, despite the flaws, is something of a success. It's by no means the masterpiece that fan boys, across the globe, will have you believe, but it's still a very welcome addition to a season generally bristling with mediocrity and pap. Although, I feel I should question one of it's tag lines in asking 'Why so serious?'

Note: I've attempted to stay clear of highlighting Heath Ledger's 'The Joker' but I just can't leave without acknowledging just what an wonderful, raw and untainted performance it really was. So let's revel in one of his finest moments with the clip above.