REVIEW : The Dark Knight

You have to see this film tamal, and if you cannot enjoy this, I pity you.
Seriously you should see this, it's so much fun
I liked it.
I loved it.
Try to see it without analyzing it too much, that way you might enjoy it.

These were the advise given to me by my friends, all of whom have liked The Dark Knight to a certain degree. The numbers are in. TDK has the honor of the highest opening 3 day collection ever, 156 million $.That’s just the US alone. I am pretty sure, come Friday , the 7 day worldwide collection figures will hit a cool 250 million easily. So what did I think of this film? I will get to that in a minute, but seeing as my opinion might be lets say somewhat unpopular I need to clarify a few things.
I admit, I let the media frenzy bias me against the film.
I do not like Nolan's interpretation of Batman in the previous film so there is that additional bad aftertaste.
I also admit I was a tad jealous, during my college years I had talked my friends to death about what I would do if I was allowed to make Batman, That included calling the first film The Dark Knight. Hah, I was ahead of my time! It also included plans for a 11 part epic structure, charting the fall and return of the caped crusader. Aaah such grand dreams. Anyway, back to the topic.
The hype surrounding Heath Ledger's performance really got me riled up. Comments like who is Jack Nicholson, and that he is more talented than Marlon Brando by award winning film critics stank of hard selling a film. If anything, this felt like a landmark win for the marketing and publicity division of Warner Bros. These were my thoughts even the night before I went to watch the film. Today morning, on my way to the theatre, I swore that I would try to be as unbiased as possible.12 hours later I think I have sufficiently digested the film to be able to write a review that should be able to explain my feelings. Please understand, this is not my bid at showing off just how elitist I am or how commonplace everyone’s taste is. I have the distinct feeling that I am probably not the audience for this film, so my opinion hardly matters. The verdict is that people love it, and there will be more of Batman in this vein.

Batman , straight from my childhood is my favorite superhero. So understandably the emotional investment in this is far greater than you can imagine. When I saw Batman Begins, when I figured that Nolan had turned Batman into a ninja and he was getting slapped into his senses by toms and janes, I couldn’t help but be repulsed by it. I remember that’s the only time in my life, that I wanted to walk out of the theatre. So before going to watch this film I thought it would be better if I saw it as a standalone rather than a follow up to that atrocious film. So without much further ado, here is my critique. Warning, spoilers galore.

Story- I liked the fact that the joker tells everyone a different origin story, I like the idea of not explaining his origins. But for all the supposed realism in the script these points bothered me a lot-
Joker gets beaten up a lot in the interrogation room, but no scars, no bruises . Bruce Wayne suddenly figures, in the Dent dedication party someone is coming to kill Harvey Dent? HOW?? Someone explain to me how the sonar works, because I was under the impression that only
the phone created by Lucius fox could do them, not any phone. If that is indeed the case, then
that renders the whole plot point of Batman finding the Joker to be completely stupid. Gordon
dies, but wait, he isn't dead after all. Why such an elaborate ruse? It seems it was set up purely to surprise the audience. Because his death wouldn’t have drawn out the joker, or gotten a confession out of any mob boss. With the joker's disfigured face, he is walking at the front of the police guards and no one notices him? The batman, supposedly the smartest superhero of them all gets his gears through Wayne Enterprises but keeps a long paper trail to have a two bit executive find them and try to blackmail fox about it?
Also the realistic look of the bat suit notwithstanding, the cowl and neckline looked eerily like
Azrael's batsuit.Not cool.But that’s a minor fanboy complaint.

Acting- First and foremost, as much as I love Christian Bale, and I do LOVE that man's work, he is plain shitty as Bruce Wayne, and his Batman voice is laughable at best. Note Christian, hoarse isn’t scary, hoarse is...hoarse.
Michael Caine , Gary Oldman and Aaron Eckhart do their roles very well, specially Eckhart. Although I didn't see much chemistry between Eckhart and Gylenhall. But in her minor role, Maggie's final sequence was touching.
Morgan Freeman played....Morgan Freeman. God I hope he gets some good roles, I miss the old him.

Now for the actor of the hour. Heath Ledger. May he rest in peace.
There are these quirks about his portrayal of the joker, that are quite good, like how he licks his face every now and then, he always looks at everyone with a little tilt in his head. Pity he never gives his maniacal laughter up close, the two times it came, it was seen from his back and from a distance. I would have wanted to see his eyes then(this is where Nicholson looked forgive the pun batshit craaaazy). I admire the man for having the balls to take on Jack Nicholson. One particular moment though deserves mention, You can't see the joker, but he tells one victim to look at him, and in the final time shouts "LOOK AT ME!" .That was good.

Is it oscar material? Honestly I don't know. I guess for me in the big picture I see so many far greater portrayal of evil men, which should have gotten Oscars( like Kevin Spacey as John Doe in SE7EN or Ralph Fiennes as Amon Goeth in Schindler's List), but didn't that this hardly seems like one deserving of that award. Still, quite good work. This is a different Joker though, and it would be unfair to compare the two. Lets not forget, even Burton's Batman is non-canon, and he made Batman into a murderer. I guess my gripe is that the joker got reduced to a murdering a few people at a time, when for the most part in the comics he has done crimes and murders on a much larger scale. Considering the films take no prisoners attitude, I think it could have been quite possible to do both. The joker in this film feels like another Hollywood psychopath. In the comics, he is unpredictable and quite smart. He stays ahead of everyone else because his insanity makes people think he is just in for the ride but he is someone locked in a circle of trying to top himself, and you also get the feeling that there is a method to his madness.

Action- This is my biggest gripe about the film. The action is for lack of a better word, very under whelming. Except for the shot where the bat mobile rams into the big rig truck, I found no other action shots to be memorable. For a 185 Million dollar film, and that too a big superhero film, I would have expected much better action. And some of the bat bike cgi was plain bad. Before you cringe, let me give you a few examples of films done for nearly the same budget, which in my opinion had far greater action.

Die Hard 4- 110 mil
Transformers-150 mil
The original Batman film-35 mil only!
Even the original Hulk- 137 million.

Sure , I don't expect Transformers to happen in a Batman film, But my complaint isn't the lack of any particular kind of action, but rather, a lack of real imagination of awe inspiring scale(again by comparison of scale, batman begins had far greater stakes).Take for example, the original jokers final attempt at creating mayhem. Jacko goes out in a ticker tape parade, announcing that he will be giving free money, knowing all the time that people's greed will bring them out and will be prime fodder for his machinations. The whole set piece feels near operatic. And the showdown is also much larger than life.
4 days into the film, and there is already talks of a posthumous Oscar and a best picture
oscar.IMDB lists it as the best film of ALL TIME, beating the likes of Schindler's List, Godfather and a host of other films. Forgive me if I don't get on that bandwagon. I didn't like the ending for one, the last lines by Gordon was cheesy enough to remind of of the 60's Adam West Batman show. And Two face reduced to being a puppet in the Joker's hands? Sigh.
One last gripe, and a major one if you will-for that brilliant setting where one ferry has the bomb trigger for the other one, I don't buy the cop out conclusion to that, that the people, after seeing what the Joker can do, don't break from their civilized lives and destroy each other. To me the film would have been redeemed a LOT if only they would have killed each other off, thereby giving the joker a very skewed legitimacy,(also in turn testing batman's faith a lot more cruelly) that civilization is but a mask. For all the shouts of a realistic bat world, this stretched credibility into a filmy 'life is beautiful, people aren't beasts' ending. Blah. On a side note, I personally would have shown some people refusing to participate in the vote itself, refusing to stoop to the Joker's level. This to me would have shown the best in humanity, and coupled with the worst, that is the people ready to kill off others in a bid for survival would have made it a spectacular plot point.

For me this film was lackluster-I guess my disappointment measures directly proportional to just how close they got to getting it right. When Nolan was selected as director, I hoped for the best-sadly that was not to be. The only highlight of this film was Heath Ledger's last performance.
I wonder how this film will be seen once the frothy mouthed frenzy dies down and is seen solely on the merits of its story, rather than the glorified and untimely death of a fine actor.