Overall rating

5 / 5

MORE THAN JUST A FINAL PERFORMANCE

PostedJuly 19, 2008

It is impossible to know the response The Dark Knight would have received if Health Leger were still alive and promoting the film but right now, the movie looks well on its way to breaking records (it has already broken the midnight showing record previously held by Star Wars III). For me, it was not so much anticipation to watch Heath Leger’s final performance as it was to watch the next film of an already amazing series. I loved Batman Begins and have been waiting for this movie since 2005 but Heath Leger’s performance took the series from good to great. When trying to establish what you think about the new batman movies you must first step back and look at the batman movies as a whole, and as a whole, they have not been very good. Thus far, Tim Burton’s Batman movie have been the only tolerable ones but even Burton’s world was not appropriate for the dark anguish that batman deserves. And now enter Christopher Nolan. He has created a world that developed Bruce Wayne’s troubled character and creates more than just a superhero movie.

Today, superhero comic movies have been a huge market (opening weekend record is held by Spiderman) and I believe that these films are only as good as their villains. Superheroes are created for the sole purpose of fighting out-of-the-ordinary criminals and their existence would otherwise be useless so the better the villain, the more the superhero has to step up and make a great movie. Because Batman Begins did not have a freak villain, as is traditional, this was the first chance for the audience to see what these villains would be like in the new Batman world. The outcome of the Nolan, Bale and Leger collaboration was extraordinary. Not only did Leger’s Joker fit seamlessly into Nolan’s world but his portrayal of The Joker was perfection. I don’t think he created an icon (the way Jack Nicolson did with the role) as much as he proved himself as an actor. I never had any doubt about Leger’s ability to portray the character and I was never nervous that his role was too hyped because of his tragic death but while watching the film, the audience is never unconvinced of masochist, evil creature that Leger created. The trailers for the film did a great job of sending chills down your spine each time you heard the Joker’s voice or his laugh and the movie keeps that tension and that horror for the full two and a half hours. The Joker creates terror from the very site of him and the audience learns, as the movie continues, that the Joker plays by no rules, enjoys being defeated, and is determined to bring out the freaks of human nature. I am sure there will be people trying to imitate Leger’s mannerisms for weeks to come.

With that being said, it seems that all the talk around the film has been about Heath Leger and no one has had the time to comment on Christian Bale’s revival of Batman. I understand that Leger stole every scene he was in but I love Bale, and I loved watching him in this movie again. I was impressed to see that the movie aimed to further develop the struggles of Bruce Wayne and did not rely solely on the villain to carry the depth of the movie, as often happens in this situation. I believe that this is credit to the actor and the writers both because they provoke new limits and struggles to the already troubled Wayne.

As the movie ended, however, I found myself wishing they had cut the film by about 15 minutes and set up the next film with Two Face [SPOILER WARNING]. I am not saying that the film was too long because, if anything it was too short but I always have a problem when a movie takes on more than one villain because the second villain never seems to receive his fare share. I understand that the change of Harvey Dent into Two-Face was critical to the plot with the Joker and that the defeat of Two Face was critical to the defeat of the Joker but I think that the villain of Two-Face is too good to not investigate further. Also, I loved Aaron Eckhart as Harney Dent but I am not sure I loved him as Two-Face, although his transformation was perfectly scripted.

Overall, the movie as a whole was too magnificent to bother looking for minor flaws and the experience is one of the most intense summer blockbusters. The grand entertainment does not lose the deep level of characters portrayed by Leger and Bale and by the end, the film’s message pushes the movie out of the league of “superhero” and creates a haunting tragedy.

Yes, I recommend this movie.

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