Bad Expectations

Rating: 10/10 (24 July 2008)

I went to Dark Knight expecting the worst. I had read on this site that this film was overwhelmingly dark, negative and depressing. Many reviewers acted like they liked the film because it is so dark and pessimistic. I personally don't like dark films. I loved Journey to the Center of the Earth and rank that as the best film of this year as well as a Chinese orphan film and the under rated Kit Kitredge. But II hate pointless and depressing stuff like The Sopranos and I never liked The Godfather series because they were boring and dark with dead horses being major moments. Its true that Dark Knight has been ranked higher than The Godfather, Citizen Cane and Apocalypse Now. But those films were terribly over rated. You want great mobster films than check out Cagney's White Heat or Angels with Dirty faces or Humphrey Bogart's great gangster films not modern soap opera mobster films like Bugsy.
This Dark Knight was hyped to be gory and grim so I almost did not go. The first 30 minutes of the film did have some gratuitous violence and I would have cut a few of the Joker's violent attacks but the film survives that. The great film Rambo is far more gory. The beginning of the film seems more like a mobster and crime film than an action film but that is OK. But then the film seemed to build. In my opinion this is not a film about flawed heroes or that good and evil does not exist.
It is really a film that is about Batman against the Joker. The joker is truly evil. The film has very little psycho babble. At first the Joker explains that his evil father is why he grew up to be evil. But later we see that the Joker is a chronic liar with a different lie about his ex-wife and cannot be analyzed. The Joker's past is not important. The Joker (also called the clown) exists to destroy the world. He also exists to change good people into bad people. Everyone has encountered the kind of people who want to change you in real life. Each one of us has had to deal with people like the Joker.
But who will go bad. Will Batman go bad? Who will go bad? Remember Anakin went bad in Star Wars. This film is essentially about endurance against evil.
The acting in this film is excellent. The supporting roles with Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are excellent. These are the two finest character actors of out time. Michael Caine has been around a long time dating back to his early films: The Ipcress File and No Time for Heroes. The other actors did fine. The female lead was fine and not as bad as some reviewers say. Ledger did a great job as the Joker. At times he seemed like the insane Jack Nicholson in the Shining and even Harpo Marx. Batman himself did a fine job. The Batman series has been OK for me but not in my top movies. This Batman is far superior to the others.
Batman and Bruce Wayne are both interesting characters and better than the wimpy Iron Man when he was not Iron Man. The special effects also work and the Bat Bike would work great in James Bond. The ending works but as some have mentioned the last few seconds could have been after the credits. This is a surprising Thumbs up for Batman, The Dark Knight. The person with me mentioned that the music from the Batman TV series should have been played. That would have been a good thing to put in the credits at the end. This is a surprising thumbs up for Batman, The Dark Knight putting it in my top five films of the year.