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The Dark Knight (2008)
Director: Christopher Nolan
Movie review
From Time Out New York
Smart directors tend to adopt a one-for-them, one-for-me ideology in their relationship with the studios; the dichotomy, however, usually doesn’t play out in a single film. Christopher Nolan’s sequel to 2005’s Batman Begins internalizes that schism between serious aims and summer-movie duties. The problem isn’t the admittedly jaw-dropping sturm und drang—this is Batman, not Bergman—but how the pummeling action rarely informs the psychological angst. The personality split between the operatic Dark Knight of the soul and the OMG set pieces is almost as pronounced as the maladies of our freak trio.
That would be the Caped Crusader (Bale), still wrestling with a DSM-IV’s worth of disorders; Harvey Dent (Eckhart), Gotham City’s do-gooder district attorney with a transformational face-lift coming his way; and the Joker (Ledger). Thankfully, an origin story isn’t offered for the grinning archnemesis; he simply appears like the Ebola virus, armed with an insatiable appetite for destruction and John Wayne Gacy’s makeup manual. Next to Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard’s propulsive drone of a score, Ledger’s performance is the most dynamic element of the movie. What the late actor accomplishes with little more than a nurse uniform and a Groucho Marx waddle makes the various explosions, as well as Bale’s raspy, remote characterization, pale in comparison. If Nolan’s only goal were to add to another revisionist wrinkle to an iconic villain, Ledger’s brutal, batshit malevolence would qualify The Dark Knight as a success.
The stakes, however, are higher. To paraphrase a colleague, the director is going for the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance of men-in-tights films, and he comes remarkably close. Nolan is pondering big themes: post-9/11 concepts of justice, the fragility of social bonds, when it’s better to simply print the legend. All of which makes superfluous side trips like an IMAX-ed Mission: Impossible–style sequence that much more disappointing. Yes, it’s visually impressive, but any hack can do a halfway decent job with trailer-ready tangents. Not everyone can push the genre forward, and the fact that Nolan’s padded popcorn flick isn’t the streamlined masterpiece it could have been is a real buzzkill.
Author: David Fear
Time Out New York Issue 668: July 17–23, 2008
User reviews of this film
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- NuhNuh said...
- Posted on Jul 15 2008 13:59 Wait... the reviewer's name is David Fear... did they hire a pornstar to write this review?
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- Mike said...
- Posted on Jul 15 2008 13:56 THat is a totally awful review.
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- Jon said...
- Posted on Jul 15 2008 13:52 A New Yorker myself, I am totally embarrassed by these bought off New York critics that hail from New York. These reviews are not even reviews, they resemble pieces of propaganda that the communists would $hit out.
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- Wow said...
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Posted on Jul 15 2008 13:48
*sigh* So you wanted the movie to be just an average superhero movie? That's the impression I got. ("...it’s better to simply print the legend") I guess innovation is not rewarded in the media anymore.
Yet another New Yorker who doesn't know what he's talking about. (all four of the negative reviews for this film stem from New York tabloids. Yes, I'm calling Time Out a tabloid.)
It's times like these that I'm ashamed to be a New Yorker. Is this some sort of resentment for Nolan using Chicago instead of New York for the setting of Gotham? - Report as inappropriate
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- Weicher said...
- Posted on Jul 15 2008 13:23 I don't get it. So your main concern is that the action set pieces do not complement the story? is that enough to rate the film 3/6, admitting as you do that the film is almost "The man who shot Liberty Valance" of superhero films? Besides, Batman is not Bergman, indeed, but the character's been dealt by Alan Moore, which it's almost the same thing.
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Cast & crew
Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Eric Roberts, Cillian Murphy, Anthony Michael Hall, Michael Jai White, William Fichtner full cast
Genre(s): Action/Adventure, Drama
Rated: PG-13
Duration: 152 mins
US Release: Jul 18 2008
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