I have a very bad historical relationship with blockbusting Hollywood films. There is a good reason for this: experience has shown that there are very few of them I like. There are a variety of reasons for this but the primary one is their tendency to be formulaic and predictable: a main character faces a problem and has to overcome a series of obstacles to succeed. They overcome lots of them and all looks well until the rug is pulled from under out feet when a whopping great problem appears...which they solve and everyone lives happily ever after. Good overcomes evil and the guy gets the girl; did I mention that there is almost always a romance? Everything is laid out on a plate and all the viewer has to do is reach out and eat it.
The Dark Knight is an exception to the above. It requires the viewer to engage with the film, or much of what happens will be both incomprehensible and confusing, and yet it was (is) very popular indeed with both audiences and critics. It is the 5th most popular film ever at the Internet Movie Database and has an astonishing 94% at the meta-critic site Rotten Tomatoes; it's theatrical release was very successful and DVD sales are also high.
It sets up a world of binary opposition - bad:good, black:white, up:down, left:right and then subverts it. Batman wears black and lives in a black building and is the good guy, The Joker is the bad guy and has his face painted white. But the longer the film goes on, the more we realise that the world really isn't like that. Good guys sometimes do bad things for supposedly good reasons. The world is grey, not black and white. We aren’t in a stupid Star Wars universe where white is good and black is bad and the latter always loses, we are in a real, human, nuanced universe. The ending dilemma (which I shan’t give away) on the ferries has important implications for people’s capacity for choosing between good and evil.
The cinematography is stunning: the camera never stops moving and always directs our eye to what is important, and the shots are immaculately composed - there are many subtleties to be explored and I undoubtedly missed a few things in my 2 watching's of it . The art direction is simply exceptional: the darkness is always shaded with colour and everything just looks great. The script is a masterpiece and co-writer and director Christopher Nolan (Memento) and his brother did an amazing job on it; the key words are doubly, trebly significant. But over all of this we have the acting. The now sadly deceased Heath Ledger gives us one of the all-time great screen baddies; his Joker far surpasses Jack Nicholson's in a preceding film, and Christian Bale's dual performance as Bruce Wayne/Batman is equally convincing. But in addition to all these good features, the plot twists and turns in a rarely equalled manner. There are events that are totally unexpected but which on reflection are completely justifiable, and there are surprises that appear like a slap to the face, even when you‘ve seen them before. It is also genuinely disturbing and horrible in places, even though it has a 12 Certificate.
There are a few negative points.. A couple of the action scenes seemed a little lengthy for my personal taste, but that might just be me; the total length of 2 1/2 hours never drags, but one wonders if it really needed that length. A few subplots could easily have been axed without ruining the story. Some parts might seem a little on the unbelievable side if you thought about them too hard, but the fact that so many people manage to suspend their disbelief for it is a good sign. Aaron Eckhart as the DA seems to lack range as an actor.
This is that most rare beast, a mainstream Hollywood film that is loved by critics and audiences alike and which doesn't treat it's audience as idiots. It is entertaining and thought provoking. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it.
Cheers, Tom.