The Dark Knight

I already declare this the best movie of the year. Hands down.

After eagerly anticipating this movie since it's prequel, Batman Begins, arrived in theatres a few years ago, I must say that The Dark Knight does not disappoint. In fact, it even exceeded my expectations, and I was already sure that it was going to be really damn awesome.

Is this review biased? Definitely. After all, Batman is not only my favorite superhero, but I loved Batman Begins and absolutely adore Christian Bale. But don't worry. Everything I'm about to tell you is 100% true.

So the Batman saga returns with a deeper and darker agenda this time around. Director Christopher Nolan takes the tortured hero and throws him into a twister of complexity and chaos as he deals with external foes as well as internal woes. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) continues to find himself increasingly dealing with the troubles of being a superhero as his childhood friend Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) finds a new beau in Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). To make matters much much worse though, even though crime has been deterred significantly, the Joker (the late Heath Ledger) shows up to turn things completely upside down, offering Batman a taste of evil unlike any other.

Indeed, the beauty of Nolan and Ledger's rendition of the Joker is that he is presented more as a symbol than as a simple villain. In line with tradition, the Joker elicits some chuckles and causes trouble, yes, a lot of it actually, but it's the surreal taste of sociopathic psychosis perfectly portrayed by Ledger that opposes Batman and everything he stands for. This Joker is driven by something incorporeal, and if I may quote him, he is a true "classic criminal." Unlike the plot of the first movie, this problem doesn't have a simple solution, and the dilemma goes beyond the surface and delves deep into the complexity of the human mind.

Things get even more complex with the transformation of Harvey Dent into Two-Face. While I expected it to happen, I had no idea his presence in The Dark Knight would play out as it did. Although it made things a little harder to follow at the end, it did introduce an entirely new moral aspect to the story, and even if it was a bit preachy, it was definitely deep.

But even if you're not into the pathos of a story, there's enough eye-candy to satisfy the average viewer. Stunning angles, boisterous Bat-vehicles, gliding between buildings and turning on walls, there's plenty of fancy action throughout. Oh and of course there are explosions galore.

The only problems I might have with the movie are the typical stupid things that the characters in movies do. For example, Rachel leaves the safety of Bruce's penthouse and Harvey knocks over a drum of oil that leads him to become you-know-what. But honestly, the numerous plot twists (naturally fed by the Joker's psychopathic personality) kept me on my feet and surprised the entire time. As the movie progressed, the mood became increasingly intense, and at the very end it was dark and beautiful at the same time. Bruce Wayne as Batman must play a more tragic role in his future, and the Joker has succeeded in showing him how alone he might be.

I'm not really sure how a sequel would work, but like the last movie it left off on a similar note, except instead of the idea that Bruce is creating his own category of enemies, he now has to deal with the dilemmas that reside within himself and his choices.

Anyway, in summary, this installment in the new Batman saga is definitely something to watch. It's much much darker, more intense, and even though it's a little too obvious with the morals the screenplay is enough to strike a person into awe. While the Batman veterans like Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman portray their characters with much talent, Heath Ledger delivers the performance of his lifetime and breathes life into the character that's been flattened all these years into a two-dimensional clown. Christopher Nolan has once again done it, bringing respect back to the Batman franchise with a film that is deeper, darker, more meaningful and so much more sensible. In fact, that's what I've personally always found attractive about this movie and its prequel, the fact that this isn't just some corny let's-make-money superhero movie. No, this is a movie that is authentic and profound.

Rating: 5/5

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