Batman, the movie that started the comic book movie phenomenon back in the eighties, now in its sixth vision known as The Dark Knight, proves again to be the only institution in this over-saturated field capable of making a good movie with a quality story.  Of course that doesn’t mean that it’s always a given.  One need only to gaze back in the past a decade or so to Joel Schumacher’s abysmal attempts at Batman to see just how simple it is to destroy a good thing and make it a laughable waste of time.

The allure of Batman has always been that he has no physics-defying superpowers, no fantastical or otherworldly background and basically nothing that separates him from any normal person other than the fact that he’s a billionaire.  Those qualities are what make it possible to create a story that would otherwise mimic a great crime drama set in the seedy and lowlife sections of a large metropolis.  Of course we need to thank Tim Burton for making us forget that Batman at one time was a silly sixties TV show and an even sillier movie adaptation.  Burton transformed and brought to life the dark and shadowy vision of Gotham City in a way that most people who were unfamiliar with the comic book were captivated by.  He made Batman’s environment a fearful place and in doing so, people developed a certain respect for him much in the way people respect a cop who works the ghetto and has their life threatened on a daily basis.

That said, The Dark Knight’s story and execution is about as close to an actual award-winning caliber attempt as any comic book movie will ever come to.  It has all the elements of a violent and dramatic cop noir with just a dash of superhero.  That dash I believe is what keeps this movie from truly excelling.

It’s difficult to combine the two.  In fact, it’s just about impossible, but I have to give The Dark Knight a serious amount of kudos for coming so close.  The story is well thought-out and the acting is of superb caliber in which there were several intense scenes that either made you squirm in your seat or sit mouth-agape in witness.  The problem is that something has to give.  Something is going to lose its credibility at some point the more realistic the movie is trying to become and it’s my opinion that both aspects falter a tad.  Both the seriousness of the story and the comic bookish semi-unreality clash at times.

If we dive right in, the obvious object that we hit first is the Joker character which clearly is the driving force behind this movie. The great thing about this incarnation of the hysterically-laughing nemesis is that he’s completely and terrifyingly human.  When I look at this version of the Joker, I don’t see some flamboyant funnyman with loud clothes and gimmickly clichéd toys, i.e. an acid-spitting corsage.  I see a true psychopath with no more resources than your typical mobster and who goes about his deviancy with reckless disregard for anything decent that might cross his path.  A violent and unpredictable madman that perfectly fits the villain role in an otherwise non-comic book movie, which in turn is sort of awkward when the hero is a guy dressed up like a bat and talks like he has emphysema. 

Granted, without the fantasy hero-vs-villain approach, we wouldn’t be treated to the majority of the splendid action scenes where Batman and his toys steal the show.  Whether he’s gliding down the side of a skyscraper only to be air-lifted out by a perfectly timed airplane or zipping through a shopping mall on his wide-tired Mad Max motorcycle that he also used to overturn a fifty-three foot semi trailer or having his armored car get blown to smithereens by a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, Batman’s escapades are never without high intensity.

But as someone who is more inclined to be impressed by intense human interaction and drama and not a glorified firework show, I believe that this movie shines in its more reserved intensity and dialog.  Right from the Joker’s first real scene in the movie among the gangsters in the basement when he interrupts their meeting, you are introduced to his level of insanity yet are drawn to his wild dialect that makes you want to just listen to him talk rather than hear what he’s saying.

Back to my original point, there are several scenes where you forget that this is a Batman movie and the story takes over.  There’s a scene when Gordon and Detective Ramirez are in a bank’s vault trying to decipher the crime and then bam!  There’s Batman standing there.  I half expected Gordon to say, “umm, do you mind Batman, we’re trying to shoot a movie here,” but then I realized that this is well, his movie after all.

Several other aspects to the plot are just thrown in and assumed that are possible simply because of the fact that this is at its core, a live-action comic book and you don’t need to explain everything.  Like the hospital and ferry ships being wired to blow up, the convoy escorting Harvey Dent to prison being diverted in an absolutely amateurish sequence of events that no self-respecting crime thriller director would even think to add into their movie, the “sonar technology” that Morgan Freeman’s character invents to listen in on the entire city’s phone calls, the plane in Hong Kong, the hostages with the clown masks made to look like the enemy and the seemingly unending amount of henchmen the Joker employs even though you always are given the feeling that he’s alone in what he does.

None of this stuff really needs an explanation in most comic book fantasy worlds because these movies aren’t very interested in doing anything other than appealing to the senses that would inspire “ooohs” and “ahhhhs.”  The Dark Knight wants to be taken seriously.  It wants you to be genuinely afraid of the Joker and to believe that the inhumanities he commits are plausible in the world you live in and while the movie certainly achieves this to an extent, it does it at the expense of Batman himself.  Even with the holes in the story that go untold, nothing about them is physically impossible.  But then Batman shows up and wheezes his dialog out and cheapens everything right back to the comic book.

The funny thing is that despite the awkwardness of the guy in a rubber suit and the unexplained holes, this movie is incredibly enjoyable and had the director gone for the R rating and let his extremely violent scenes breathe, I would be pounding the podium with my fist in declaration of how much I loved it and that you should too.  But even so, this movie is without a doubt a milestone in the genre and one that raises the bar to an unprecedented level.  Will we see an Oscar nod for Best Picture?  Of course not, but fellow producers in this field should take notice.  Will Heath Ledger get a nod for his performance?  Don’t be too surprised when it happens.

Batman: The Dark Knight

July 29, 2008

Reviewer: Jesse

Release Date: July 18th, 2008
Studio: Warner Bros.
Genre: Action/Adventure
Rated: PG-13      2 hrs 32 mins

CAST:

Christian Bale: Bruce Wayne
Christian Bale: Batman
Heath Ledger: The Joker
Aaron Eckhart: Harvey Dent
Aaron Eckhart: Two-Face
Maggie Gyllenhaal: Rachel Dawes
Michael Caine: Alfred
Gary Oldman: Det. James Gordon
Morgan Freeman: Lucius Fox

DIRECTOR:

Christopher Nolan

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