The Darkest Knight

Rating: 10/10 (18 July 2008)

I have just returned from one of the most pivotal, exciting, edge-of-my-seat movie-going experiences I have ever had the pleasure and thrill of attending.
This film is by a very colossal margin the most impressive achievement in film making i have seen this year. Perhaps taking on the sole role of Summer Blockbuster, THE DARK KNIGHT: in its length of nearly 3 hours, is jam packed with Popcorn perfect action, jaw-dropping special effects, and perhaps the most complex, twisted, and purely sadistic persona ever captured on film.
Immediately, and I mean immediately, the film opens with action, comedy and thrill, and for the next 152 minutes, never lets go for a chance to breathe, because quite frankly, there is no room for it in this film that, somehow, builds endlessly like a tightrope and just keeps going, and going, and going until its explosive, emotional climax, and then it keeps going, and going, and going until its unexpected, bittersweet conclusion.
Very rich in the special effects department, this film uses many elements that are simply real: props, lighting, pyro, and fake elements, using CGI only when absolutely necessary, and it blends in simply beautifully. Because of the film's scale, which stretches halfway around the world, along with the seemingly larger-than-life occurrences that are pulled off perfectly, this film just looks real. The realism in the personal elements, along with the violence and technology strewn throughout the epic film, adds only more to the film's sense of it happening right there in front of you. The people in this film aren't just pawns anymore, they are entangled into a complex conundrum of the difference between what is right, and what is fair, a concept deliberated between the so-called Light knight: Harvey Dent, and the caped crusader himself throughout the entire film up unto its final, grindingly suspenseful moment.
Of course, this personal review would be shamed and incomplete without an analysis on Heath Ledger's jaw dropping, smile-inducing, shock provoking, and mind-bending performance as the twisted, sadistic Joker. From the first moment we set eyes on that wretched, nasty face of his, we are clinched in his grasp until the film's end. We are NEVER sure or aware of when he will show his painted face as the film progresses, and sometimes, or should i say no times, is it met with any warning or preparation. You feel almost unsafe in your own theatre, because you are simply out of control, as the viewer it has become impossible to dictate his actions and watch them with little more than a sense of a spectator or distant observer. No, you are wrenched in and held down to view his role with every twisted development. Also, a special hats off to the film's music department, headed by James Newton Howard. The Joker's theme is so ear-bending and insanity-ridden, but also excruciatingly simple and low-key, that every time you hear it, you are frightened, scared and uncomfortable because it is always accompanying a scene fit for its madness. When you hear it, you will know. Heath Ledger's performance covers a spectrum so complete and complex that you almost are lost within it at times. He, like his name implies, is actually quite rarely joking, comical or cynical in his dealings, even though he commonly refers to it as his game. This film is really the first batman piece to really analyze the irony and metaphorical complexities in his title. That really, he isn't joking, he isn't out for a laugh so much as a sheer, sadistic thrill from seeing chaos ensue around him, and he gets this until he laughs that teeth-grinding laugh that just beckons for more. He is unhesitant, uncaring, and sly to a fine point in his dealings that seem to somehow work their way into the minds of Gotham's police department, and hopefully the batman as well, for as he says, his world has no rules, but Batman has only his one, and the testing of Batman's rule pushes him into the ultimate internal and external battle he can face. And as an audience member, after it is all said and done, ask yourself if you would have used the same methods against the joker's heartless workings into your soul. The premise that film takes on really does grab you by the throat and force you to think, either then or later. Which is perhaps the main reason i loved this film.
THE DARK KNIGHT is a spectacle, it is a summer thriller, it is a romantic struggle, and a pure psychological playground. Go prepared.
11/10