The Dark Knight (2008)

The best way that I can think to describe this film is that it is fucking awesome; you would be hard pressed to find a person that did not think this movie was totally sweet. In The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne, with the aid of James Gordon and Harvey Dent, confront the chaos and destruction that the emergence of the Joker brings upon Gotham City. The follow-up to the much acclaimed Batman Beginnings, the first of the new and improved Batman films, Dark Knight goes above and beyond the great accomplishments of its predecessor. Christian Bale is one of the best actors of his generation, and does an amazing job as Batman. His embodiment is exactly what you would expect having read the comic books, and not, like Val Kilmer or George Clooney's, a caricature of our hero. It is hard to say that Bale's Batman is better than Michael Keaton's, Keaton will always be the original to people from my generation, but it is close. Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhall, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman are all amazing in their respective roles. In terms of the supporting cast, this one is packed; whoever put this group together did an amazing job. In case you had not heard, in his final role, Heath Ledger turns in a performance that would make Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito proud. Again, it is hard to say this Joker was better than Jack's, but it is amazing. Ledger is so convincing and captivating that the true sense of psychotic evil that he is portraying is almost palpable. I have to wonder, in retrospect, if the producers and director regret casting Ledger or the way they leave his character in The Dark Knight after his untimely passing, but I would imagine that few would change anything about this movie even if they could. The plot of this movie is thick and fantastic. The web of twisted lies and trickery that the Joker sews is ingenious, and I am truly impressed by the writing of the Nolan brothers. The one thing that concerns me about this film was a problem that the other Batman series also ran into; they have a tendency to use too many villains in one film, which makes it harder to continue producing quality cinema. Without giving anything away, The Dark Knight chronicles three different villains to some extent, and I hope that the series does not fall into the trap that leads to using people like Jim Carrey and Arnold Schwarzenegger as primary bad guys. I love the new Batman series; I am thrilled that director Christopher Nolan has taken the route of trying to make a superhero movie as realistic as possible. Thus far, he has been extremely successful. If I get the chance, I will watch this film again, and I cannot wait for the next installment. I give The Dark Knight 4 stars.