Every Not-so-Often, Comes a Movie that's DARK and DIFFERENT...

Rating: 10/10 (31 July 2008)

The Dark Knight is wonderfully dark that it's beautiful; in a way of the storyline's flow and the characters' development. It restored my faith in filmmakers' ability to make an original movie. Especially these days where a lot of sequels, remakes and based-on-something films are being made. Even though The Dark Knight was based on a comic book, Nolan managed to make it different, thrilling and DARK in its own way.
The Joker, Batman's arch nemesis, was just a disturbed guy who fell into some toxic and was changed into a psychopathic clown with a huge grin in the comics. Nolan's (or maybe Ledger's) Joker however is something totally different. He has no origin story and every time he tells it, he changes the story. He's a guy with a motive and not some crazy lunatic even though he seems like one. His face was carved a smile. And Ledger did an amazingly terrifying Joker. After a few minutes of his on screen performance, you'll be asking yourselfIs that REALLY Heath? Instead of flower squirting out water or a gun that shoots out "Bang" flags, we are given a sadist who finds sheer pleasure in people's misery and his ultimate goal is total anarchy. The other actors were amazing as well. Christian Bale was a great Bruce Wayne but his Batman voice needs a bit of time to get used to. I can't find a more suitable actor than Michael Caine to play Bruce's sarcastic old butler, Alfred. And Gary Oldman was born to play Lt. Gordon who was quite badass. My only complain is that Cillian Murphy didn't have enough screen time as the Scarecrow, and it takes some time to adjust to Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes (who was played by Katie Holmes in Batman Begins).
The storyline and story-telling is done amazingly and coherently well. Starting from a simple (well, probably not) bank heist and ending with a hostage situation and a "social experiment". By the end of the movie you'll realized that the villain, The Joker, had planned the whole thing, even though in earlier scene he said that he is "like a dog chasing cars"He doesn't know what to do when he gets one! But no, he planned it thoroughly and smartly that everything that was done, was done at his bidding. A perfect example is when he rounded up the people of Gotham to kill Mr Reese by a simple phone call and the way he dragged District Attorney Harvey Dent from the light into insanity. The story tells an amazing example of GOOD versus EVIL, order versus anarchy, life or death; in a way that you'll feel sorry for both side and have yourself thinking which side is the truth because both have a motive of their own. It also shows the humankind's characteristic, especially during the ferry/bomb scene. It will leave you thinking, what would all of us do in that time of panic? I won't say more than that
To add tension to the already "at-the-edge-if-your-seat" storyline, is the score. Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard did a ground-breaking effort in creating this masterpiece for our ears. For example, the track "Why So Serious?" was so intense that you feel quite pressured during the bank heist scene. It may not be a movie soundtrack that you'd listen to repeatedly, but it is the only soundtrack that's perfect for the movie. The movie runs for a full 152 minutes, but by the end of the 2nd hour, you'll be saying to yourself, "Please do NOT end yet." The on-going intense storyline really covers for the very long running time.
It's a "once-in-a-lifetime" movie because the suspense and twists and turns would only worked on the first watch. Go watch it on the big screen or IMAX if you can because it's practically a masterpiece of art, especially during the Hong Kong scene!
If you haven't watch it, I'd say go for it. If you already had, then good for you and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do. If you're planning to let this one slipped because of some hypothetical and rivalry reasons, then all I can say is, you poor thing WHY SO SERIOUS?