The Dark Knight
My expectations were high, but the aptly titled Dark Knight didn’t disappoint.
Without a doubt the darkest and most complex Batman film to date, The Dark Knight teeters somewhere between the action, suspense and horror genres. It’s the sort of big budget “popcorn” action film I could imagine Alfred Hitchcock enjoying. And like all really good films, it has multiple layers: mental, political, metaphysical and emotional.
Where the overriding theme of Batman Begins was fear, the themes that emerge in The Dark Knight seem to be terror, hope and anarchy. Batman knocks the criminal underworld out of balance, and gets an equal and opposite reaction. At times over the top — some of the chase sequences were unnecessarily long and confusing — the majority of the film remains rooted in a dark reality (insofar as comic book films can be realistic). Compared to Batman Begins, Director Christopher Nolan pulls back even further from the pulpy worlds of Tim Burton’s Batman films, and Frank Miller’s Sin City, and paints a picture of a very believable and corrupt Gotham.
I couldn’t help but associate the character of Harvey Dent, Gotham’s District Attorney, with Barack Obama; a public figure that the masses look up to and invest their hope in. And that’s a big part of what the Batman stories have always been about: symbols. Symbols of hope, symbols of fear. Nolan and the talented cast communicate these symbols very effectively. There were moments where I was scared of the Joker in the same sense I was scared of Anton Sugur, the cold-blooded killer from No Country For Old Men. I didn’t feel safe sitting in my seat. Heath Ledger’s portrayal as the charismatic anarchist clown is truly terrifying.
One comment I overheard on the way out of the theater was that the movie was too long. I found this comment odd, because I’ve always thought the Batman films are (or should be) like good roller coasters, with plenty of nail-biting twists and turns. I find it so disappointing when the ride is so much shorter than the time you spent standing in line. So, I say, “bring on the long, twisty roller coaster and give me my money’s worth.”
And The Dark Knight does just that.
I intend to see this film at least once more before it leaves theaters.