Marketing Dilemma

The Dark Knight: Review w/History

The last eight years have produced a variety of superhero films from both the DC and Marvel universe, from their traditional signature hero lines and also from their graphic novel endeavors as well. The last eight years a few movies we’ve seen are…

X-Men, X2: United, and X-Men: Last Stand (2000, 2003, 2006) from the Marvel Universe, and then the Spiderman 1, 2, and 3 in 2002, 2004, and 2007 respectively. There was also a Hulk movie by Ang Lee that is being forgotten here. In 2007, DC and Bryan Singer released Superman Returns which albeit a classic story of America’s most prominent superhero fantasy, failed to really capture moviegoers who seemed to have gravitated to the complex, emotionally driven dramas of its predecessors. However in 2005, another DC comic adaptation was propelled to the big screen. Batman Begins opened with strength and quickly became the one movie in my life that I have gone to seen in a theater more than just twice, but four times.

Through my friend Nick, I was briefly educated on the independent film scene and learned to appreciate enough the “story” within a movie without the need for something spectacular visually. It was here that I began to wish that “snooty” indie film directors would consider bringing their excellence into the world of comic book superhero fantasy, after having to endure special-effects laden, mediocre retelling of the X-Men by Bryan Singer who does have a gift for drama (see House, MD., Usual Suspects) but still maintains an entertainment-only appeal which forces upon you the suspension of disbelief.

Batman Begins changed all that for me. Christopher Nolan, a more mature director who became noteworthy for the film Memento which follows a man with no new memories having to retrace the events of the film backwards, while a linear storyline which progresses forward somehow meets him in the middle, took the reins of the franchise. This ability to tell stories creatively provided some promise for me when I first read that Christopher Nolan would direct Batman Begins, but I had problems reconciling the new director with what I had already perceived about the Batman franchise from the four previous incarnations by Burton and Schumacher. Christopher Nolan has a knack for hiding realism behind the ruse of the fantastic.

The first Nolan movie picked apart and left for examination the life and trials of Bruce Wayne leading up to his calling as the Dark Knight. You see the progress his life had to make from boyhood through college up to the foiled pivotal moment where he must face the parole hearing of his parents’ murderer with nothing but a plan for vengeance. We see Bruce train in martial arts with Ducard (eventual villain) and learn to place his life in submission to a purpose. The entire time we watch this progression we notice the plausibility of everything Bruce Wayne is doing for himself and all of sudden our willing suspension of disbelief becomes effortless to the point where we reach in my opinion the purest form of fantasy: The place where we begin to think this could be real so much so that we wish it was (see The Lord of the Rings Trilogy)

The Dark Knight does not fail in this area. Unlike the other comic book movies, and without the glamor of this year’s brilliantly entertaining Iron Man played marvelously by Robert Downey Jr. or also the moderately successful revamp of The Incredible Hulk with the consistent Ed Norton, there is a sense of reality within TDK that is near undeniable. Wayne Enterprises is a successful company based in Gotham City that lacks the pop culture connection of Tony Stark and Stark Enterprises which for us the viewer we have to within the bounds of fantasy appropriate Tony Stark as not a figment of our imagination whereas the implied globalist agenda of Wayne Enterprises is instead relegated to us as just another all-American technology company that minds its own business that could very well exist because the movie is not full of itself. There’s a higher sense of realism in these new Batman movies by Christopher Nolan that no other superhero movie to date has been able to replicate.

Should you still be in the decision-making stage of whether or not you want to view The Dark Knight let me urge you to do so upon these following conditions:

1. The movie is in fact, a movie… loosely based on the comics of today and even yesteryear. Superheroes in movies do not share the exact same continuity as comics.
2. Gotham City in and of itself does not exist.
3. There is no Joker in real life.
4. There is no Batman in real life.

However, if you have the desire for Gotham to be real (without forced suspension of disbelief), with the Joker and Batman playing the game that Archvillain vs. Hero do within a heightened sense of realism not found in other movies of this genre then by all means this movie is for you.

Points of view on directing/casting:

Christopher Nolan (Director) - I guess this my only synopsis of how much I like this guy as the director of this movie(s) is that he is not Michael Bay in collaboration with Jerry Bruckheimer. Product placement count for this movie is few and far between: the Lamborghini Murcielago, a few Dell monitors, and an iPhone-esque device are all that stood out for me to really remember… unlike Transformers even in all of its brilliance still makes me think about the transformed Mountain Dew machine, and the small XBOX troll…

Christian Bale (Bruce Wayne/Batman) - As a young Bruce Wayne still coming to grips with responsibility as that symbol of strength against injustice, Mr. Bale continues to define the role yet again juggling two lifestyles by smartly combining the quick natural disciplinary instincts of Batman with the still rough around the edges billionaire playboy entrepreneur who by this go around exhibits a sense of maturity by utilizing his playboy ability into sneaking him and Alfred out of the country…

Heath Ledger (The Joker) - Superb. The sadness around the late actor’s premature death is only stirred yet again when the viewer witnesses the magnitude of just how good Heath Ledger is in the role of Joker. Everything, from his slump, to the green hair and Tammy Faye-esque application of makeup to his eery delivery of blunt reasoning behind his homicidal desires of chaos do not serve anything less than a gaping chasm of definition between Good and Evil. A good actor is determined not by the roles he plays, but by whether or not the roles he played can be remembered separately from him as a person. In this movie, Heath Ledger was not Heath Ledger at any point. The Joker could have been credited as: Himself.

Michael Caine (Alfred Pennyworth) - Mr. Caine has been a great choice in my opinion for this role. It is however a wish of mine that we begin to see the practical application of Alfred in Batman’s missions in the future. Otherwise, the only sane individual in Mr. Wayne’s life is very much present and I am thankful for this part of the story.

Aaron Eckhart (Harvey Dent) - This was surprisingly amazing. If the character name hasn’t given it away by now, Mr. Eckhart’s appearance and overall demeanor doesn’t fit his transformation into Two-Face. His flip from white knight to villain is so non-sensical that unless you think about it from that perspective you probably won’t think he did a great job but that is just it… he did. The switch from good to bad was so non-sensical it only added further to the simple fact that Harvey Dent is in fact Two-Face and there’s no real way to understand him, and as such the pity for him sets in.

Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox) - The tag team fatherhood of this character and Alfred appeal to both sides of Bruce Wayne. Mr. Fox supplies the gadgets and supports the Batman, whereas Alfred more often supports the man that is Bruce Wayne. Mr. Foreman in his narrative-style delivery is fitting for the highly intelligent, amazingly ethical Mr. Fox as the CEO of Wayne Enterprises.

Gary Oldman (James Gordon) - I used to not like Gary Oldman because he normally portrays villains. That is until his work as a non-villain as Sirius Black in the Harry Potter movies (gasp!) as Harry’s surrogate father that the Gordon we know as Commissioner becomes clear. Mr. Oldman is in fact that hard-nosed sweetheart family man of a police officer that people my age seem to love when we think about the combined personalities of Detective Sgt. Murtaugh, and Detective Sgt. Riggs. Watch out for Gordon and his good cop/bad cop routine.

——————————————

***The views expressed are simply mine. Write your own review if you are not happy. :-)