AICN have posted a review of The Dark Knight, where the movie is com­pared to The God­fa­ther 2 and Heat whilst also sug­gest­ing that Heath Ledger should get an Oscar nod from the Academy.

This review con­tains spoil­ers — full arti­cle included after the break.

Just after watch­ing The Dark Knight. I see no reviews are online so I
thought Id send you my review.

Ive kept this review as spoiler free as pos­si­ble as I dont want to ruin any­thing like some­one did recently with another Chris­t­ian Bale movie!!!

Ill start by say­ing that I was a fan of Bat­man Begins and am a huge admirer of Christo­pher Nolan’s body of work. I had my faults with BB mainly to do with how they shot and edited the fight sequences but felt it was a great start to a much larger story and I jumped with joy when Gor­dan pulled out the Joker card at the end.

The Dark Knight opens with a bank heist sequence that high­lights how the joker is always one step ahead of the crim­i­nals he is work­ing with and the police who are after him. Numer­ous men break into a bank con­trolled by the mob wear­ing clown masks and com­ment on how The Joker
has put the whole thing together. This is the cat­a­lyst for which the rest of the events in this movie takes place.

The heist does not go to plan well at least not for all the gang. Its a great set up and pay­off and a unique way of intro­duc­ing the ace in TDK’S whole or in this case its Joker.

Heath Ledgers per­for­mance of the joker is truly one for the books. A man of no remorse or morals who sim­ply wants to see things burn. There is no back story or estab­lish­ing the char­ac­ter. He is fully formed. He does have some dia­logue scenes that reveal a bit of his back­ground.
Lets just say he has some issues with his father and that smile of his is rooted in a ges­ture of love. He is far from a car­i­ca­ture and has depth . He realises that with­out Bat­man he would not be. The Joker is almost more of a ter­ror­ist than crim­i­nal. He is not moti­vated by money. He wants to see peo­ple suf­fer. Its a damn shame that this was Heath Ledger’s final major per­for­mance as it shows a whole dif­fer­ent side to him as a per­former and I now know that he was end­lessly tal­ented. To watch him walk away from an explod­ing hos­pi­tal dressed as a nurse is prob­a­bly my favourite moment Ive seen on film so far this
year. Also look out for when he makes a pen­cil dis­ap­pear such a cool moment! Best sup­port­ing Oscar anyone?

Gotham is still engulfed by crime. Falcone’s reign as the head of the mob is over and that seat has been filled by Sal­va­tore Maroni played by Eric Roberts. What becomes clear is that there are also numer­ous other gangs within Gotham. Its no longer just one syn­di­cate. They are all in some way in cohoots but the arrival of Bat­man has made it harder for them to operate.

Bat­man has inspired the city offi­cials par­tic­u­larly Har­vey Dent. The
DA for Gotham city. This is really his story. The rise and fall of the white knight. He is Bruce Wayne’s hope for Gotham City. A hero who doesn’t have to wear a mask. A man who can inspire hope in the masses. If BB was about fear then TDK is about hope and is rel­e­vant in today’s times. Har­vey Dent is a good hon­est man who is will­ing to bear the weight of bring­ing down all the crim­i­nals on his shoul­ders and what that means for his own life and those he loves. In terms of his tran­si­tion to Two Face all I will say is that every­thing online that Ive seen is fake. The moment we first see him in hos­pi­tal when Har­vey
Dent asks Gor­dan what his nick­name used to be in Inter­nal Affairs and Gor­dan says Har­vey Two Face and Har­vey turns to him . Such a clever way of estab­lish­ing the char­ac­ter. Even down to his dou­ble sided coin. Lets just say Aaron Eck­hart puts Tommy Lee Jones to frig­gin shame!

The film feels more like a crime drama in a grand city scape than a typ­i­cal comic book movie. It feels like Heat except Bat­man is Al Pacino and The Joker is Robert De Niro and just like in that film we have a great scene between Heath Ledger and Chris­t­ian Bale across a table. There is also an ele­ment of a Greek Tragedy.. There is a vast
sense of moral­ity at play within the film.

Dent is try­ing to bring down the crim­i­nals and wants to bring them in under a RICO charge. To do this he needs Batman’s help as he has to bring in the man who takes care of all their money. A glo­ri­fied accoun­tant as Rachel Dawes puts it.Think Al Capones accoun­tant in the Untouch­ables. So Bat­man ven­tures to Hong Kong. It adds to the idea that this is very much set in the real world and its not just Gotham that Bat­man can access.

This all hap­pens within the first third of the film. The run time is
two and a half hours. It doesn’t feel that long as there is so much going on within the film. Ive always felt Christo­pher Nolan was able to han­dle pac­ing unlike many movies that are over two hours these days. This is also his first entirely lin­ear film and he proves him­self to be a gifted sto­ry­teller and a mas­ter of util­is­ing film as a visual medium. He fills each frame with so much scope and detail. You can tell he is enjoy­ing him­self with the amount of money he is being allowed to play with and wants to bet­ter him­self and the fran­chise. Although this movie doesn’t feel like an instal­ment in a fran­chise.
The best thing I can think of for com­par­i­son is The God­fa­ther Part 2.

There is no sign of the Bat­cave in this film. Although Alfred does make men­tion of it say­ing how he looks for­ward to it being fin­ished. Bruce now lives in a pretty sweet pent­house apart­ment and his new bat­cave is in an under­ground layer in the docks. Bruce and Lucious Fox have been work­ing on the suit and toys although to my sur­prise the Bat­pod was in BB and nobody spot­ted it. It’ll put a smile on your face when it makes its introduction.

Chris­t­ian Bale owns this role. He is Bruce Wayne and he is Bat­man. He
is also a third char­ac­ter in some regards as there are almost two sides to Bruce Wayne. The pub­lic fig­ure, a play­boy bil­lion­aire who knows how to spend his money and the Bruce Wayne behind closed doors who only Alfred and Rachel get to see. A man cov­ered in bruises and wounds who des­per­ately wants be free of Bat­man but is com­pelled to make a dif­fer­ence as no one else can. He can play the vil­lain to be the hero as he does.

The sec­ond third focuses on the cap­tur­ing of The Joker. The city is liv­ing in fear as he makes threats on national tele­vi­sion that he
always fol­lows through with. You sim­ple have no idea what he will do next. There appears to be no rea­son to his mad­ness although that proves to not be the case.

I don’t really want to give away any­more. I will say there is death but not in the way some of the fan boys who have watched the trailer are think­ing. There is a pres­tige moment within the film that is a true Chris Nolan moment. The scare­crow is in the film but has a very minor role.

Just go see it on open­ing day in a room full of fans. Ill be doing the
same and have no doubt Ill enjoy it even more the sec­ond time round.

Enjoy.

Tim Bis­ley