Movie Review No8-By Connor-Stevenson Wright The Dark Knight Review The Dark Knight stars Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. The film is directed in Christopher Nolan and the film was released in 2008. The story is set a year or so after the events of Batman Begins and Batman is still protecting the city. But a new villain has entered the picture. A delusional psychotic called The Joker who leaves chaos and anarchy whenever he looms. Whilst this is happening the city wants a new hero in the form of District Attorney Harvey Dent nicknamed the White Knight. Lets just say if I reveal anymore of the story I will be going into spoiler territory and I wont put any spoilers if you havent seen the movie. (You must be living under a rock if you havent seen it). First of all the cast remains the same with a few additions. Christian Bale does a great job at portraying Bruce Wayne/Batman. And you feel his character is a little bit more wiser and better then he was in Batman Begins. Gary Oldman returns as Jim Gordon and he is awesome in this film. He still brings the professionalism and awesomeness he had in the first film. Michael Caine is still brilliant as Alfred Pennyworth the Butler and words of wisdom to Bruce Wayne. Lets just say Id say his best performance of the character is in the next film even though he does do a great job as Alfred. Morgan Freeman returns as Lucius Fox and all I can say is MORGAN FREEMAN. If you dont like the guy you are not human I mean hes one of the best actors alive. And now to the new editions. Maggie Gyllenhaal takes over the role of Rachel Dawes and Maggie Gyllenhaal is ten times better then Katie Holmes performance. Its less wooden and she feels realistic. She handles the bad situations in perfectly and she never felt like a damsel in distress even though her character was in a few dangerous situations. Aaron Eckhart is great as Harvey Dent. His performance is enlightening yet so distraught. I kind of routed for him more then Batman at times because he was more lawful yet he had an iron fist over the criminals of Gotham. I cant really say anymore about his character as it will spoil the film. But I have saved the best actor for last. Heath Ledger as the Joker. This guy scares the hell out of me. He is one of the greatest villains who has ever hit the screen. He is up there with Anton from No Country For Old Men, Hannibal Lector from The Silence Of The Lambs, Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange and Darth Vader from the Star Wars films. This portrayal is so endearing and psychotic you want to see what this guy is going to do. This version of the Joker is so random you are scared of what he is going to do yet you want to see it. He is terrifying yet so electric. Whenever he is in a scene I had goosebumps. He stole the film and that was all down to Heath Ledger. The posthumous performance is just so amazing. It is one of my all time favourite performances because he is just so charismatic and psychotic. And I love Jack Nicholson but Heaths Joker makes the Crazy Nicholson look tame. It is that fantastic. Without the casting of Heath Ledger the film would have been good but it wouldnt have had the impact it had. God bless you Heath this performance will be a testament to how good of an actor you were may you rest in peace. Now to the technical elements of the film. This film is beautiful. Each shot captures the dark neo noir feeling of the film perfectly. The IMAX action scenes are some of the best action scenes ever put to celluloid. And they are mostly practical. Just the 18 wheeler flipping over shows how great it is. The score by Hans Zimmer is dark and brooding and captures The Dark Knight Himself. And yet again the direction by Christopher Nolan is fantastic. You can tell he loved making this film as there is never anything unnecessary. His genius blending of a super hero and crime film is just superb. This is definitely Nolans best directed film. All in all The Dark knight is one of the best films ever made. Its the super hero film that made the super hero genre more then just popcorn flicks. The Dark Knight is The Godfather of the superhero genre. It takes it seriously and it proves that you can make a good superhero film like The Avengers but not making it a family friendly film. This film may be rated 12 but it pushes the limits. I mean I watched this film the year it came out a few years before I was twelve and I didnt understand some of the themes of the film and it is quite violent for a 12 I mean it almost borders 15. And you can tell the impact of which this film has made. Nearly every super hero film is trying to use the tone of The Dark Knight. It refurbished and reinvigorated the genre to what it is now. The performances are fantastic. The cinematography and set pieces are some of the best in all of films and it is a very well directed film. And if you havent seen this film I recommend you watch it. Even if you havent seen Batman Begins just watch it because it is one of those sequels you can jump into also where have you been you should have watched this film. It is one of the greats of the genre and one of the greats of the medium of film. 10/10 Next week I will conclude the series with The Dark Knight Rises.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 19:49:02 +0000
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