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• The Dark Knight (2007)
  Starring: Christian Bale,  Heath Ledger,  Maggie Gyllenhaal
  Director: Christopher Nolan
  Certificate:
  I went in to The Dark Knight not really knowing what to expect. Given that I hadn’t, unlike most of the rest of humanity, liked Batman Begins I was certainly sceptical about the almost rabidly enthusiastic praise in the reviews, but the trailers had convinced me that this was at the very least going to be a better film than Batman Begins. I wanted, as I always do when I see a movie, to come out singing its praises to the heavens, what I didn’t expect was to come out of the film saying that I didn’t really dislike it, but I didn’t like it either, I nothinged it.
  It is indeed better than Batman Begins, simply by dint of never being truly boring. While Begins took forever to get up to speed The Dark Knight kicks off with a bank robbery which is one of its finest sequences and sets out the film’s nihilistic tone right from the off. The narrative is certainly packed with incident (perhaps overly so, there is such a lot going on here and so many characters that much of it ends up feeling extraneous) but the script; by Director Nolan and his brother Jonathan isn’t very good. Much of the film, particularly the first half, is given over to portentous, doom laden lines like Harvey Dent’s “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain” and one of Alfred’s lines, which it would be criminal to divulge, these moments land with a thud, and all the subtlety of a neon sign telling you how the plot is going to develop suddenly appearing in shot.
  The Dark Knight has a truly massive cast, and the performances are something of a mixed bag. Maggie Gyllenhaal is an excellent idea as a replacement for charisma void Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes, but the part has been stripped of even the modicum of personality it was afforded in Begins and Gyllenhaal makes little impression, despite giving it her best. The cast’s older statesmen; Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman could both have simply had their footage reused from Begins, as both phone in their small parts once again, essentially playing themselves. Jim Gordon’s role is much expanded for this film, and Gary Oldman really rises to the task, making Gotham’s one good, honest cop by far the most engaging and most real person in the film.
  The central cast are just as problematic as the support. Eckhart is actually a good Harvey Dent, believable as the crusading DA, Gotham’s white knight, but his Two Face doesn’t work. That’s not really Eckhart’s fault, because Two Face is to this movie what Venom was to Spider-Man 3; and unnecessary, unconvincing and incredibly rushed portrayal of an iconic character. The change in Dent simply doesn’t have enough screen time to become convincing. Christian Bale, given that he’s the title character of this movie, has very little screen time, and very little to do. Bale is a great actor, make no mistake, but this is as bad as I’ve seen him be. There were layers to Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, a genuine conflict subtly played, here Wayne is a vacuum, a cipher devoid of any personality, reduced to being a mouthpiece for what the movie wants to say about Harvey Dent and the nature of heroism. Bale’s Batman hasn’t improved either; he’s still completely unintelligible more than seventy percent of the time thanks to Bale’s ludicrously deep Batman voice, and when you can understand him he says little of consequence. At the end of the day though The Dark Knight belongs to Heath Ledger’s Joker. Ledger’s death in January, at just 28, was a tragedy, and robbed the world of an interesting and constantly developing talent, but I didn’t want to let that colour how I viewed this performance. Ledger has been suggested for a posthumous Oscar, and will likely be nominated but, to my great regret, I don’t think this is anything like an award worthy performance. It’s instructive to compare Ledger’s Joker with Jack Nicholson’s, in Tim Burton’s Batman. While Nicholson certainly hams it up he plays the psychotic criminal to the hilt, but never forgets to add a sense of fun. Ledger, though, is resolutely one-dimensional. His Joker is psychotic, make no mistake, and he’s got the laugh down, but there’s little glee, little sense of fun to it as if it has been swallowed by the film’s oppressive darkness. Ledger, with his lip smacking, raspy voiced, reptilian performance is slicing the ham just as thick as Nicholson did, it’s just that this time it’s smoked rather than honey roasted.
  Christopher Nolan, along with his DP Wally Pfister, does fashion some pretty stunning images, and he knows how to use Batman’s silhouette to capture iconic comic book like moments, but he’s still absolutely not an action director. To be fair he has noted the criticisms of Begins massively overcut fight scenes, but this just highlights the other problems with the action. Batman moves incredibly slowly, like he’s working through a series of choreographed moves (and not very interesting ones at that) and there is still little sense of power. Nolan clearly wants to make a crime drama; great, I’d pay to see that, but he’s not got the requisite action credentials to do justice to a superhero movie. This becomes painfully clear in a climactic set piece, which is cut so badly that it’s nonsensical, and ends up looking like a computer game thanks to some deeply unnecessary special effects.
  All this said The Dark Knight has moments when its towering ambition meets its achievement. The opening bank heist and the Joker’s pencil trick are both notable, but the highpoint comes when an ancient plot device giving the hero an impossible choice is once again wheeled out… only this time the end result is different, and terrible. It’s a genuinely shocking moment, and one that really deserves to take place in a much better film.
  I don’t want to sound like I hated The Dark Knight. At two and a half hours it moves pretty fast, and there’s never a dull moment, even when the film isn’t actually working it’s not boring. Too much of it does fall flat though for the film to be great, even if a couple of moments are within touching distance of greatness. The Dark Knight isn’t a bad film, but, sadly, it’s not a very good one either.
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