The Dark Knight, Its The Best Blockbuster In 16 Years But Still Not Perfect

Rating: 7/10 (24 July 2008)

SPOILER FREE
So I went to a special screening of TDK last night, it was pretty ******* okay. The Dark Knight is the best interpretation since Burton's films (or some might argue since Batman:The Animated Series.It's a fantastic film which succeeds in impressing but if you step back & think for 2 seconds, it's not perfect, still has many flaws but is still the best blockbuster in years.
I just have to get it out of my system, Batman Begins sucked on a huge level for me, poor & underused villains, some miscasting, a long & very boring first half, & not enough Batman. The Dark Knight succeeds in all these areas this time the parallel opposite to BB villains, the Joker is both terrifying & unbelievably insane, there are moments when he shows his insanity, the cinema find it funny I didn't...half the time anyway, I saw a deranged psychopath with no moral compass. Harvey Dent, I don't care what people say but for me the films belongs to Harvey, it stayed true to his comic counterpart, actually it didn't but character wise it does stay very true to the source material, Aaron Eckhart puts in an extremely memorable performance (as did Ledger) as Harvey/Two Face.
Should I talk more about the good like the awesomely cool chase sequence or the occasional glimpse of a great musical score which ends up being a tad OTT but still great, nope I'm gonna talk about the negative stuff. The Dark Knight is not the truest version of Batman, the Joker wears makeup, Dent's transformation into Two-Face has completely been changed, stupid Rachael is still in it, & the convenient set ups are bloody annoying. All these things are Nolan's fault, why cause he wants his vision set in the real world, excuse me I'm never seen the Batman comics ever try to be realistic, in TDK you feel he's taking this too far & that in the next film it will get ridiculous, wouldn't be surprised if the Riddler was turned into some super hacker.
Nice to see how conveniently he can get a new suit in such short time (only the later campy Batman films were guilty of this) or just so happens to have a Bat-Pod come out from nowhere, which still looks ridiculous. Rachael is now played by a different actress (Maggie) who I'm a fan of which made her character that more interesting than Cruise's wife from BB but still they could of used one of the many women in Bruce's life from the comics (& no not Vicki Vale). I have a slight problem with two aspects of Nolan's films which are related...Bruce Wayne, Bale is not playing Bruce he's playing Batman all the time, not literally & yeah I know Batman's mask is Bruce, there is no depth to Bruce's character, by depth I mean in the film it wants to be, but compared to any other blockbuster its PERFECT. You feel no emotional connection to the things which affect Bruce's life, you see it affect Batman but not Bruce, if you get what I'm saying. And the second thing related to this is Bale, he plays Batman not Bruce, when's he's Bruce he never shows the depth of acting a actor should for playing this deeply scarred torn character, look at Keaton in the original films, his face did half the acting while he was Bruce & he showed the exact version of Bruce I have in my head, a tortured soul who just doesn't fit in & not Bale pretending to be this ass of a playboy isn't quite the same thing. Doesn't help when the only scene I felt anything for Bruce was when he was sulking in the chair, which was both brief & required almost zero acting skills mostly cause the camera wasn't focusing on Bruce but more on Alfred. I only connected to Gordon & Harvey Dent, but both of the actors who play them are two of my favourite actors. Minus those two I just felt emotional connection to the characters, yeah the Joker does things which cause people to get angry & upset but the film distanced itself from showing any emotional depth other than a few scenes most of which are Harvey/Gordon related.
This is much more I can criticize especially being a serious Batman fan but I won't go into that since it will give big spoilers away & this review is getting long . How about some positive closing comments (two paragraphs I mean) .
The Dark Knight is by no means a bad film nor an OK film nor a good film...no it's a fantastic film which just about meets my expectations. I still can't get over Bale's voice as Batman (deep voice) or some of the aspects of the villains but it makes up for it with a very well thought out script, occasional snippets of unique & original dialogue (all by the Joker & Dent), some much improved action sequences over BB, & a fitting but not entirely satisfying fan-boy ending but is well done nonetheless.
But here's the thing it draws more on the detective aspect of Batman but oh shock it really isn't, Batman does almost zero detective work honestly. And the big thing is it's become a film...not a superhero film, Nolan has sucked everything out of Batman making it this realistic story of an outcast, which is fine, hell even great...no fantastic but it's not an accurate version of BATMAN that's why I give it a 9/10 (so close to giving it a 9.9/10) I've thought about all night & I just can't be like everybody else & give it a perfect 10 just cause it was fantastic, I just don't think it quite earned a perfect 10.
I still like Batman Returns & '89 more, I believe Burton captured Batman & Bruce Wayne better than Nolan ever will.