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The Dark Knight (2008)

Director: Christopher Nolan

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Average user rating

170 reviews

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 2008-07-15 15:57:55

Time Out New York Issue 668: July 17–23, 2008

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User reviews of this film

kayla said...

Posted on Jul 22 2008 18:43 Amazing movie. Incredibly well done. Magnificent cast. Bale and Ledger were AMAZING!!!!!!! The movie was awesome in every way. There just isn't anything else to argue about. IT WAS INCREDIBLE.

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James Beswick said...

Posted on Jul 21 2008 15:51 Basically, this is not a good film. The convoluted plotlines, long stretches of dullness, and lack of acting from anyone but Heath Ledger, renders this one of the most disappointing movies of the last few years. Once everyone gets beyond the morbid element of one of its main actor's death, it's clear that the Nolans pumped this out without much regard for the characterization and suspense that has defined their other films.

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martin said...

Posted on Jul 21 2008 13:40 i love lamp.

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ShaunaLaMya said...

Posted on Jul 21 2008 11:41 I loved this movie!

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fusionweb said...

Posted on Jul 20 2008 15:45 The fact that TONY only gave this film 3 stars only solidifies my view of them as verbose, pompas, pseudo-intellectual morons. Glad I never bought the magazine.

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Me said...

Posted on Jul 19 2008 17:39 5 stars. (< period)

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Andre said...

Posted on Jul 19 2008 11:09 I thought the movie was weighty and gratuitous in a good way. It lent to the pathos of the characters and asked some interesting questions about the nature of humanity in regards to good and evil in an intellectual and viable way. The acting was brilliant and the production score and editting were equally so. Perhaps it does fall short of being something transcendant, especially after the two face character is introduced but I was impressed by its lack of a direct moral center even though nolan went to great lengths to make us make moral decisions. This task was a herculian one and it was handled with breadth and poignancy.

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Joe said...

Posted on Jul 19 2008 03:04 Roman, we are not suppose to care about whether or not Two-Face kills cops because of who the cops are but because of who Two-Face is.
***SPOILER***
Harvey is the last great hope of Gotham in Batman's eyes, and his descent into darkness, shown by him becoming the executioner, shows the Joker's victory. He has destroyed The White Knight that could given Gotham a hero without a mask.

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Claude said...

Posted on Jul 19 2008 02:21 I've seen the film last night and it is honest to God one of the best movies I have ever seen in my life. The overwhelmingly positive reviews (many of which are RAVE reviews) speak for themselves----The Dark Knight is a landmark film in the history of "superhero" movies and will be remembered as such. It's absolutely brilliant. I can't understand why this critic David Fear is bashing it.

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Roman said...

Posted on Jul 18 2008 21:29 Frank, why is it that if I disagree with you that I am pretenrtious? I haven't said anything negative about the people who like this movie. I liked the movied. I liked it a lot! But I still felt that there were some serious flaws with it. Yes, I do like some of the Dogma movies. And? So? It's a matter of taste. I stand by all of my comments. I don't see people who find fault with the movie calling the ones who don't morons or shallow, or anything else. But the offiensive language that the fans have used to defend this movie is uncalled for. Why the hell trash a city and it's residents because a critic who happens to be from this city didn't love the movie. In terms of the escalating violence, I still don't feel that it "raised the stakes." What about all of the cops who were killed in the chases and the explosions. There's no mention of them once they've been dispatched. No 21 guns. Like they didn't even exist. But we're supposed to really care whether Two-Face kills the corrupt cops or not? My opinion and I'm sticking with it.

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Frank said...

Posted on Jul 18 2008 18:28 I'm getting the vibe that people that aren't enjoying this movie are the pretentious types who actually enjoy Dogme '95 films. Just because it's a "comic book" movie doesn't mean it isn't a good movie and just because it has action set pieces doesn't lessen it's effect. In fact I'd say because it's more accessible than films that are more likely to be critical darlings. I would say Heath as the Joker is the greatest villain I have ever seen in a movie. His performance is so good I forgot it was Heath Ledger. All the characters have good and believable story arcs and I felt that the escalating death toll, raised the stakes considerably for the final act. If one is desensitized by seeing death on screen, that person probably needs to take a close look at themselves and how much they value human life. This movie sets a new standard for superhero movies or just summer movies in general. The Dark Knight is immensely satisfying and I will be seeing it more than once.

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Roman said...

Posted on Jul 18 2008 12:46 Jose, I completely respect your opinion. But for me, the deaths were gratuitous, and did nothing but desensitized me. After seeing so two or three buildings blow up, I didn't really care that much about the fourth or fifth. I even heard some people rooting for the Joker. Again, this was only my experiense. However, I think that a lot of the posts on here have been childish and deeply offensive. I, as a New Yorker feel very offended by a lot of the things that the people have written. Again, I enjoyed the movie, but in my humble oppinion, it could have done more with less.

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jose said...

Posted on Jul 18 2008 12:32 Roman, I totally disagree, the deaths helped to build the climax of the movie and show that the stakes were escalating, which you needed. Bale did an excellent job of showing Batman agonizing over every death. Unfortunately I can't flesh this out anymore for fear of giving away spoilers.
This film was really, really good, and Fear just comes across as an arthouse snob who can't accept something that isn't within his latte fogged glasses. Reread his review, its like he begrudgingly liked part of it but he wish he could be seeing some old black and white movie he got from Kim's Video or something.

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Roman said...

Posted on Jul 18 2008 11:00 I tend to agree with the reviewer and think that the people who disagree, while certainly having the right to, are doing it in a childish and offensive way. I saw the movie in a pre-screening and have to say that I really liked it. And from my reading of the review, so did the reviewer. However, I was a more than a bit disappointed with certain aspects of it. Yes, it is a certain type of movie, but it really felt like Nolan was trying to get beyond that, and didn't quite make it. Again, I thought that the acting over all was quite good, certainly Heath Ledger was outstanding. But, my personal problem was that after a certain number of people get killed and a certain number of things get blown up, it's just hard for me care. I don't want to ruin the movie for those who have yet to see it, but you get desensitized very quickly in this film. I think that if someone were actually calculate how many people probably died in all the mayhen that did occur (we're talking September 11 levels I think), it's just hard to care about another dozen hostages. It just makes a lot of the moral points that Nolan tries so hard to raise, moot. As Joseph Stalin once aptly put, One death is a tragedy, one hundred thousand deaths is a statistic.

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jose said...

Posted on Jul 18 2008 10:38 Craig, you're about as big an idiot as this writer. A handful of writers didn't like the movie. This has nothing to do with one being a liberal or CONservative and enjoying the movie. If you looked around you'd find a lot more writers who may be liberal who loved this movie than these three or four dissenting voices.
NLM, yes Fear is entitled to his opinion but one hopes that as a paid professional his opinion he may actually know his stuff and not just dislike a movie because it has a big budget. The Bergman comparison sets the tone of the article from the onset that Fear refuses to see this as art. I guess he never got the memo that art comes in different shapes and forms.

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