Review: The Dark Knight (2008)

[Scott Mendelson]

The Dark Knight
2008
152 minutes
Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence and some menace.)

by Scott Mendelson

The Dark Knight is above all an emotionally and physically draining
roller coaster ride and morality play. In most circles, expectations
are nothing short of all-time greatness, but writer/director Chris
Nolan makes a few tactical blunders that prevent the picture from
achieving the mythical status that it so craves. Rare is the movie
where declaring that it isn't a masterpiece almost qualifies as a pan.
It's aspirations are so high that its flaws and concessions to
commerciality are that much more apparent. Yet while this obscenely
entertaining Batman film is not perfect, but it's still a towering
achievement.

A token amount of plot: This sequel picks up a year after Batman
Begins. Batman, Lt. Jim Gordon, and District Attorney Harvey Dent are
putting the final squeeze on the Gotham mob scene, with the help of
the new squeaky-clean and inspiring DA, Harvey Dent. Alas,
complications involving a Hong Kong businessman and the seemingly
motiveless bloodshed and chaos of a pasty-faced madman known as The
Joker (Heath Ledger) will soon jeopardize everything.

Taking inspiration from Heat and The Untouchables, writer/director
Chris Nolan has attempted a crime opera rather than a comic book
adventure. For all intents and purposes, Gotham City is now downtown
Chicago without a trace of the gothic art deco designs of previous
Batman films. There are several large scale action sequences, and for
the most part they are slightly less choppy and better edited than
Batman Begins. But the real meat is in the complicated narrative and
character interaction, especially between Batman and The Joker.

The emotional arc of The Dark Knight involves three good men as they
attempt to cope with unstoppable and inexplicable evil without
corrupting their own morality. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) sees the
idealistic Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) as a man who can inspire people
without a mask and with complete devotion to law and order, to the
point where there may not be a need for Batman. Gary Oldman anchors
the movie with one of his best performances. His James Gordon is a
sobering portrait of a man who makes integrity and decency exciting in
a city where both are in short supply.

To answer the next question, Heath Ledger is terrifically fun with a
definitive and spellbinding take on The Joker that is every bit the
equal of Jack Nicholson and Mark Hamill (his laugh, his mouth work,
and his inflection in quieter moments are actually similar to
Nicholson). Played to the hilt as pure Id and sociopathic glee, he is
simply walking death. Presented as a remorseless, murderous force of
nature, The Joker has no back story and little character development,
and his ultimate motive is a civics lesson in mass pandemonium. Nolan
only allows him to show up just enough to cast a dark shadow over the
rest of the film and Ledger's work is a stellar supporting turn in the
best sense of the word.

Bale again makes a compelling Bruce Wayne, and his philosophical
interplay with Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) and Alfred Pennyworth
(Michael Caine) are again highlights. All three debate what moral
lines they will or will not cross to stop a completely immoral
monster, while one subplot will be bittersweet to those who have been
following the recent FISA debate in Washington. However, the voice
that Christian Bale uses for Batman sounds even more cartoonish than
in Batman Begins. The vocal choice comically sounds like what it is -
a soft-spoken man trying to sound gruff and angrily macho (at times,
he sounds like McGruff: The Crime Dog).

Maggie Gyllenhaal makes an acceptable replacement for Dawes, more
convincing than Katie Holmes as an ADA but less compelling as Bruce
Wayne's moral compass. One of the refreshing things about Batman
Begins was that Rachel Dawes was not primarily the love interest, but
rather a source of compassion and caution to a young and reckless
Bruce Wayne (she was almost the Leslie Thompkins of this particular
Batman mythology). Here, alas, her primary purpose now is her role in
the love triangle between Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne.

Chris Nolan has attempted something bold and daring, trading in the
optimistic and introspective Batman Begins for a dark and pessimistic
meditation on moral compromise and blowback. The story itself
eventually comes to involve not just the battle between heroes and
villains, but the choices that innocent civilians make in times of
terror and mania.

While lower in body count than Tim Burton's Batman, the violence is
potent and the film is incredibly intense throughout (do not bring the
kids). There are several worthwhile plot twists, and there is a
constant sense of dread and looming doom that permeates the picture
(there are more than a few intense montages of mounting doom as
several threads threaten to culminate in violence). However, the need
to combine R-rated content with a PG-13 format leads to an obtuseness
to the carnage. The violence is presented with lots of quick cutting
and obscure angles, to the point where it's occasionally difficult to
discern what happened.

Amid the fine acting, rich characters, and crackerjack scenes of epic
action and tragic violence, there is just too much, and yet not
enough. More so than in Batman Begins, Nolan again feels the need to
over-explain story points and character themes through lengthy
monologues. And there is just too much story for this one film. The
Dark Knight is seemingly thestory that Nolan wanted to tell in the
second and third films of the series. But since he doesn't know if he
will return, he tried to stuff everything into one sequel.

Thus, this 152-minute epic feels too short by at least thirty-minutes.
Batman himself ends up getting the short shrift, and it's a bitter
irony that we've now returned to a Batman film series where Batman
must fight for screen time against his supporting cast. Even Harvey
Dent's arc gets shortchanged, with a finale that will remind people,
not in a good way, of Spider-Man 3. In fact, Eckhart's Harvey Dent
comes off as less psychologically realistic and complicated than
Richard Moll's performance in Batman: The Animated Series. Either
Nolan should have made this a two-hour film concentrating on Batman
and The Joker, or he should have made a three-hour Batman epic. We're
left with a film that's both too long and too short.

Despite several genuine flaws, the film works splendidly as a Batman
story, an action drama, and an intelligent and thoughtful adult
entertainment. That it's merely one of the best films of the year and
not the greatest movie ever made is no shame. By any rational
standard, The Dark Knight is a triumph.

Grade: A-