Trite and Unoriginal, Epitome of bland pop-cinema

Rating: 3/10 (30 July 2008)

I deemed it expedient to review the movie, "The Dark Knight" due to the positive reviews and acclamations it has unduly received. In actuality "The Dark Knight", henceforth to be referred to as TDK, is a trite manifestation of mediocrity that is cataclysmic in proportion. A cinematic travesty; it is the embodiment of mass-produced, assembly-line, manufactured and uncreative pop-cinema that dominates the modern box office. **SPOILER ALERT**.
For most of the cast of TDK, the acting was obviously and embarrassingly far below par. Never before in such a high-budget, hyper-over-hyped cinematic enterprise has there been such drab and boring under acting. Christian Bale seemed bored to even be in the movie as if he was waiting to get home to beat his mother. Perhaps he needed someone to tell him how to move his cheeks, lips, eyes brows, and other facial features in order to portray Bruce Wayne. His voice acting is much worse than his facial expressions as he refuses to change its tone or pitch except when he is rasping in an utterly fractious way to disguise his voice when he is in his Batsuit ( this is not often since for a movie about Batman, the character makes surprisingly few appearances ). Christian Bale earns himself a sub review of 0/10 for his portrayal of Bruce Wayne.
Maggie Gyllenhaal's acting Rachel Dawes was no better than Christian Bale's, however, as she did not have an annoying rasping "batvoice" I would have given her a better rating. Except that her looks, which fall well within the category of ugly, points towards a poor casting decision. It would have been worthwhile to sacrifice acting ability for attractiveness in this case. Movies are venues for good looking performers to showcase certain interesting performances and not for ugly people to attempt vainly to perform at all.
Heath Ledger's portrayal of the villain The Joker is the only boon in the otherwise atrocious acting of the film. He is certainly the only actor in TDK that took it upon himself to give a performance. He does a fine job as a menacing and maniacal, albeit, formulaic and predictable villain. His voice as The Joker is much less annoying than the batvoice of Bale. Heath Ledger went as far as he could with the character within the bounds of the contemptible screenplay.
TDK has several action scenes. And while some these are intense and somewhat exciting there is nothing unique or particularly breathtaking about them and for the most part they are very manufactured and bland. It is possible that Christian Bale was filmed in a batman suit punching air in front of a green screen for 30 seconds and reused and looped the footage of this for every fighting scene. Batman punches the same generic henchmen (or hostages dressed as henchmen) in almost every scene. He is attacked by dogs TWICE (The capitalization will be explained fully in the next section). The car chase scene halfway through the movie when The Joker attacks the convoy carrying lawyer Harvey Dent was reminiscent of shots from Mad Max over 20 years ago except that everything was dark and covered in shadows. Instead of making things more dramatic and horrifying this just made it hard to see what was happening. Some scenes were entertaining, like the helicopter crashing into the ground (See: Die Hard 4.0 ) and the semi truck flipping (See: The Matrix Reloaded ). The action scenes were well-made, but unoriginal and similar to the action seen too often in recent movies and will hence earn an average rating.
One issue that plagues TDK is that some of the more exciting things happened twice and hence one is able to see their flaws and blemishes and be annoyed rather than entertained. For instance Batman is in Hong Kong and crashes through a window to break into a building and kidnap a businessman. Then, later, he crashes through a window to fight The Joker. Batman is also attacked by dogs two times, Gets T-Boned in his "Batmobile" by a rocket, and then in his Ferrari by another vehicle. The untalented writers must have run out of ideas half-way through the movie and decided to recycle all of their previous ideas.
The screenplay is uncreative, unoriginal, and cliché. From the start of TDK the tone is set to be dark and foreboding. Initially this works, but as the movie lingers on, the darkness becomes boring and the tone becomes more and more annoying. The chaos becomes predictable. Every scene was shot only in shades of gray; the movie could have been shot in black and white and nothing would be missed. The only occasion that primary colors make an appearance is when something explodes. The lines are cliché, but not so much that they add a humorous element and many seem like they are trying to make the audience feel intelligent. Examples of this are quotes such as "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Any line such as this is easily made, for instance "It never bodes well for a movie that tries so hard to be foreboding", and as such no quotes really leave a lasting impression. There is a palpable feeling within the movie that the movie ITSELF is trying to be good, but, ultimately fails to achieve this task. TDK takes itself much too seriously.
Things that were done well include the CGI on Two-Face which adds some color to the otherwise gray Gotham City and whose goofy looking eye can wrench a guffaw out of the most stoic and humorless amongst the audience. The scene where Batman was on his motorcycle was also entertaining and much more creative than most other action scenes in TDK.
Suffering from a poor screenplay, statuesque acting, and mediocre and bland action scenes, "The Dark Knight" will receive an overall score of 3/10.