The Dark Knight...Shrug

Rating: 4/10 (20 July 2008)

The Dark Knight..Ledger and Chicago 10, Plot and Dialogue 4
The Dark Knight is the latest saga in the Chris Nolan/Christian Bale dynasty of Batman films. We return back to gotham city where the mob has taken ahold of the money in gotham city, but only operates during the day due to their fear of the Batman (Christian Bale). Enter the Joker (Heath Ledger) a card carrying pscho-killer who teams up with and is ready to lead the mafia back from the dead by wreaking havoc on the city and luring in the Batman in for the kill (or so we think). Meanwhile an election is on for the new D.A. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) who is dating Bruce Waynes ex-girlfriend Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Wayne meanwhile follows Maggie around trying to up-stage Dent and Maggie with his affiliations with ritzy fundraisers, 3 girlfriends on his arm and at one point taking the Russian Ballet yachting just to cancel a performance that Dent and Maggie would be attending. All of this while a beautifully shot city of Chicago provides the backdrop for Gotham City.
What proceeds from here are a number of twists and turns in the plot between the aforementioned characters as their ambitions are revealed on the screen. Bale plays Wayne cocky and overly arrogant. He plays Batman with a voice that is overly gruff, distracting and almost comical. Gyllenhaal is fine as Maggie, but under developed and lacks range which is more because of the character, rather than Gyllenhaal herself. Eckart plays Dent pretty straight but like many of the characters in this film underdeveloped (aside from one). This is the joker's ace. Ledger's character is the only character that is fully developed with a proper through line. His needs and wants are well defined without having to spoon feed the audience. Ledger communicates this brilliantly without taking it over the top.
Spoiler Alert Overall likability and believability is the big problem here. Not a problem if this is Schumacher's Batman, but it ain't. This is Nolan's Batman in a more realistic setting. The characters are deep enough but the the twists in the plots come before they are around long enough for the audience to identify or care about them. Even Batman has to restate what he wanted Harvey Dent to be to gotham city about 3 or 4 times, just to remind the audience.
This leads to another major problem with the film, Maggie's death and the transition from Harvey Dent to 2-Face. Not convincing enough of a transition. I doubt that the Joker, who killed Maggle could and would convince Dent to get revenge and start killing people all in one scene. It is a very week plot point and unconvincing. Also, what is up with the 2-Face make-up. it strikingly resembled the skeleton of the T-1000 from Terminator. For a Batman film that wants to be realistic...sorry...totally unrealistic! The infections in the exposed bones would not hold up. Also, he flips the coin too many times which prolongs the action in a non-suspenseful way.
Other points include cheesy reaction dialogue from random cast member and a tye in-to national security that tries a little too hard to make a point. All is not lost on this adventure. The actions scenes are good, Batman/Joker chemistry is very good. This is a grossly overrated film that takes one step back from it's predecessor. The question remains, is Ledger's performance good enough to garner an Oscar nomination: yes. Should The Dark Knight garner an Oscar nomination, uh...no. Some critics have related this film to Heat and The Departed. Not even close.