Review: The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight, the most anticipated movie of the year, is finally here. It's hard for me to review The Dark Knight because I have mixed feelings about the movie. You should see it for sure, that's a given, and you probably will even if I don't tell you to. The Dark Knight is a sad case of how too much hype can ruin an otherwise good thing. By the time I actually watched the movie, I felt like I'd already seen it. There was just so much hype surrounding the movie that, by the time I saw it, I was already tired of it.

It's just as you would expect: dark, story driven, and with fantastic acting. The Dark Knight is not just an excellent Batman film, it's a great film in general. The believability factor that I seem to love so much is as high as it can be in The Dark Knight. Everything that happens is completely plausible in real life and that really sucks you in. The characters are obviously very well developed, even the Joker and Dent which really have no back story and are "just there". Dent obviously was elected Gotham's DA recently which basically tells you that there is a time gap between the two films. The Joker has no back story in the film and it simply chronicles his rise to power. Of course the Joker is captivating; I enjoyed just hearing him talk simply to try and figure out more about how he ticks. It's a shame that the Joker's gone for good now (though he doesn't die he's been written out of the third film's script) because, even though Heath Ledger is dead, I would have liked to see someone else try to fill his shoes.

The movie obviously plays off emotions like fear and all that very well and is basically "true" to Batman. To try and say that the Joker steals the movie is wrong. All the characters are equally important and necessary. In my opinion, it's an ensemble thing and everyone plays their part amazingly. I even like the new Rachael better than the old one. There's really not a whole lot I can say about the movie without spoiling plot points but I will say that a major character dies, but it's not who you think it is. The one other thing that bothers me about this movie was that everyone was obsessed with the Joker. Was I the only one who wanted to see Two-Face? Several people I know didn't even realize Two-Face was in The Dark Knight or they thought he was just at the end for two seconds. I can assure you that not only is Two-Face in the movie for a good amount of time, and he's awesome. I read somewhere that all the pictures online of him were fake. Well, guess what? That picture I posted a few months back that was a Two-Face concept image was pretty accurate. If you must know, here is a picture:










It's very deep. Too deep for a superhero movie- which is why it's not. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed The Dark Knight. I'd see it again, too. Maybe it'd be better the second time. In any case, go see it. But you were going to do that anyway, weren't you?