The Dark Knight never gets past being a "comic book movie"... A disappointment.

Rating: 5/10 (22 July 2008)

Being a huge fan of Batman Begins (10/10!) I was as excited as any movie lover for The Dark Knight. And when the hype built up to a historic point, I was PSYCHED, man! I couldn't wait! So now, afterwards, I wonder what went wrong. I wonder if I've just seen too many superhero and action movies and I've been desensitized by them, or if I'm just insane (or stupid) for being a 20-year-old who didn't adore The Dark Knight.
From the beginning, something struck me as being a little off. The character of Batman/Bruce Wayne was not the same. He lacked the inner turmoil and the depth that we saw in the first movie. Not only this, but the film itself seemed to lack depth. None of the major themes of the movie came up until about an hour into it. I also could not ignore the sickening camera movements and use of music... Two characters would be having a relatively calm and simple conversation, and the camera would circle around them and fly every which way. Meanwhile, the music score sounds like it was misplaced, and it should be accompanying a fight scene. I think this complaint is just an example of what I found generally sickening about the Dark Knight. It takes all the techniques deemed effective in a modern action/suspense movie, and it piles them on to the point of exhaustion. I'm not just talking about the technical aspects of the film. It just fails to overstep the bounds of its genre. It's chock full of suspenseful (but old) little tricks and plot devices- dead characters suddenly appearing alive, events that have the sole purpose of giving the viewer a jolt (like the body smashing into the window), ridiculously high-tech equipment, villains who are complete geniuses with explosives and who force the main character to choose between two people he loves. I could go on if I thought a little bit harder.
The gaudy style is a lesser tragedy than how dumbed down this movie is, though. In Batman Begins (Some might say it's unfair to compare the two movies... Well, I say it's not. This is a sequel to Batman Begins) there is plenty more to digest than what meets the eye. The viewer is treated to an amazing transformation of a man, thanks to the conquering of his greatest fears. The message was crystal clear, and it was amazingly thoughtful for a comic book movie. The Dark Knight, unfortunately, doesn't get very far past its identity as a comic book movie, giving us the usual "moral dilemma", "right and wrong", "Am I going too far?" stuff that I honestly don't find that interesting, because, how many of us have to decide on a daily basis whether or not it's right to kill some one who has killed? It sure hasn't happened to me lately. We all face fear, and that's why Batman Begins is so engaging. It has appeal as something other- something MORE- than a comic book movie. The Dark Knight does not.
And now for the little things that I couldn't figure out how to put smoothly in a paragraph. There were definitely problems with the plot. Certain elements of the story seemed to disappear, or weren't resolved properly. Take, for instance, the phony Batmans. What happened to them? No one knows. I don't remember any resolution for that. Also, the whole subplot with the mob annoyed me, in general. It seemed as if it shouldn't have existed; or at least, its role in this film was much too big. The only point it seemed to have was as something for Harvey Dent to attack to show how powerful he was. Why does the Joker come up to them and make a proposition with them? They turn it down, and ultimately, nothing comes out of the whole thing. Also, the scene where Batman crashes his motorcycle in order to avoid killing the Joker, and then when he saves him from falling- that was PATHETIC. The standard superhero schlock of letting the bad guy go- in this case, one of the most convincingly evil and sadistic bad guys EVER. This movie could've had so much more kick if he had just manned up and killed him. How awesome would that have been? But no, of course it has to abide by the freaking superhero code. Sad.
Oh, but wait, there were good things about this movie! I did give it a 6 out of 10, you know. After all the negative things I've typed, it seems like I would have to type just as much positive stuff to justify my rating. But no, I can do so in just two sentences (one is a fragment, actually). 1: I was entertained. 2: The Joker. As far as 1 is concerned: despite all the things about this film that bugged me and made me think ill of it, it still got to whatever part of my brain it is that makes me enjoy stuff. Like I said, I AM 20 years old, and I'm also male, and certain things are just highly enjoyable to me and most people of my age and I can't really say why. Well, the Dark Knight is overflowing with those things. There's people falling off buildings, people getting thrown off fire escapes, senseless betrayal, trickery (The hostages! awesome), truck chases, Morgan Freeman, and obviously, explosions. The list goes on. Yes, these things were entertaining and enjoyable, but they don't redeem the bad qualities of the film at all. They just make it watchable- perhaps even rewatchable. As far as 2 is concerned: Heath Ledger deserves an Oscar nomination. It helps that his character was written to PERFECTION, of course, but Heath was really something else. The voice, the tongue thing, the walk- everything about the Joker just oozed chaos and anarchy. If I see this movie again, I'll probably space off whenever he's not on screen.