The Dark Knight Movie Review

So I figured I’d watch the Dark Knight the first showing Saturday Morning as opposed to seeing it on Friday night packed in like a bunch of canned sardines. Also I live near the ghetto and most people in this area don’t seem to venture out before noon so I figured the 9am showing would be the quietest. At any rate, I saw the Dark Knight.

Man. What an intense flick!  Very gritty and heavy. I’d say, it was a really good crime drama film that the protagonist happened to be the Caped Crusader himself, Batman. I enjoyed it and it really gave off the vibe of a Batman Graphic Novel from the 1980’s. Very serious, not fun and grim.

NOTE TO OBNOXIOUS PEOPLE THAT THINK THAT FORCING YOUR ADD CHILDREN ON EVERYONE ELSE AT THE MOVIES IS AN ACCEPTABLE SUBSTITUTE FOR A GOOD BABYSITTER: The Dark Knight is no Iron Man. It’s a very long (almost 3 hours) movie. There is nothing Summer Blockbuster a la Transformers for your child’s 30 second attention span to grab hold to. Your kids will become bored because this isn’t an action movie, it’s a crime drama. Lots of talking heads. Do you think taking your kid to see The Godfather or Copland would be fun for your child? If your kids don’t get bored, there are some pretty ugly things that happen that may disturb them, so think twice about bringing them. In other words, we know all you don’t give a rat’s ass about anyone else in the theater, but you may want to consider your children because I don’t think they’ll enjoy being in a movie theater for that long for something boring and or potentially scary.

Enough of my rant! The movie is good. Very good. There are no Indiana Jones action sequences that will get you OOHING or AHHHING that you might expect from a super hero movie. So I’d divorce yourself from any notions about watching another Spider-Man  or X-Men film. There are some really cool gadgets Batman employs and we even get to see Batman with the no iris white eyes like the comic book for a bit which to a geek like me was cool.

As for the other characters, of course everyone is talking about the late Heath Ledger’s take on The Clown Prince of Crime, the Joker. Certainly, Ledger was amusing for sure, but I think the character with the most depth in the entire film would be that of Aaron Eckhart’s portrayal of District Attorney Harvey Dent. Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine do well with their roles as well. Christian Bale, by far is the best actor to suit up for The Batman. I’d say the only person I  didn’t like was Maggie Gyllenhaal replacing Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. It might just be a personal preference thing, because I have never understood what all the hullabaloo about Maggie Gyllenhaal was about. I don’t find her acting terrible, but it doesn’t stand out to me. Also I don’t find her very attractive either. Sorry, but that’s just the way I feel about her. Actually I’m not sorry. I stand by my opinion. P.S. I didn’t think Katie Holmes was well cast for the original role in the first film either.

Ultimately, I think the film is good as a drama film. I think there may be two camps that form about whether they like this movie or not; Those that enjoy the film because it asks us to reexamine what we define as a super hero film and the people that want a Six Flags amusement park ride when they watch a super hero flick or any film for that matter. And to the latter I say, maybe you should have stayed home with your kids.

MY OPINION: GO SEE THIS FILM IMMEDIATELY  (In IMAX if at all possible!)

*The Dark Knight was filmed in IMAX so in doing so you will be watching it as it was intended to be seen larger than life with incredible resolution.