The Dark Knight
Saturday, July 19, 2008
“Why So Serious?”
For anyone living in a box lately, The Dark Knight takes place about a year after Batman Begins. This time around, Batman [Christian Bale] teams up with Lieutenant Gordon [Gary Oldman] and Gotham’s new District Attorney, Harvey Dent [Aaron Eckhart] – the guy many people believe – including Bruce Wayne – to be Gotham’s white knight in his fearless attack on crime, rounding up mob bosses and cleaning up the streets. Things are going smoothly until a psychotic bank robber, soon known to a terrified Gotham as ‘The Joker’ [Heath Ledger] gets the upper hand and unleashes a new kind of chaos and terrorism on the city. The question is – why? According to Dent, “you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.”
Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine reprise their roles as Lucius and Alfred. This time around, Maggie Gyllenhaal replaces Katie Holmes as Rachael Dawes. I thought she did a good job. That character is a tad on the annoying side for me, no matter who’s playing her. But Maggie was very convincing and fit into the mix just fine. Both Eckhart and Ledger did stellar jobs, and Christian Bale … well… he’s perfect in this role.
To say The Dark Knight is ‘good’ is an understatement. This movie was AMAZING. I already can’t wait to see it again! There was so much more to it than I expected. I loved Batman Begins so much that I was actually worried this one wouldn’t live up to expectations because the last one set the bar so high. I can honestly say they cleared the bar and kept going. I don’t want to give anything away so I’m going to wrap this up. Just know that the story is brilliant, the acting was top notch and the effects – visual and stunts – were awesome. There was so much more to this story – this was a comic book movie that hit so many social and moral issues, making us think, while simultaneously taking us for a wild ride and even made us laugh here and there. This movie is long at 2 1/2 hours, but the pacing was dead on. I dare say this is the perfect summer blockbuster and I’m going to do it…
5 out of 5.
A first here at Movie[Crack]House. Also, it’s worth mentioning that Christopher Nolan was at the helm again, the same guy who directed The Prestige and Memento. His resume isn’t that long yet, but it’s pretty impressive. I’m looking forward to many years of amazing movies from him. =) For those that enjoy a good movie score, my hubby informed me that The Dark Knight’s soundtrack is pretty similar to the Batman Begins soundtrack – except no more weird latin bat names for song titles, so you can actually figure out which scene they go to. Beware of the ’special edition’ soundtrack – it doesn’t have any additional songs to the regular one – it just has ‘collectible’ cards – so if you’re only interested in the music, save the $5 bucks and skip the special edition.
And finally… I have to mention Batman’s ‘other’ car – the gorgeous Lamborghini Murcielago LP640. Read more about it here: Jalopnik.com
Add’l Info: Released: Jul 18, 2008 • Runtime 152 minutes • Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and some menace • Movie Photo by Steven Vaughn via allmoviephoto.com • Car photo by Edo Competition via jalopnik.com
