THE DARK KNIGHT
Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Michael Caine, Aaron Eckhart
10/10
‘The Dark Knight’ is chilling, moving, thrilling, depressing and predominantly real. Batman is a real guy with real feelings, and a not-so-great job. He has made his choice to dash around in a cape and save people at night, rather than spend them with a loved one. He wants a normal life, but it doesn’t look like that’ll ever happen, not unless someone else steps up to the plate and starts playing hero. Enter Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart); a good-guy district attorney who’s hell-bent on putting Gotham’s criminals away for good. And with Batman (Christian Bale) and Sgt. Jim Gordon’s (Gary Oldman) help, he does.
Unfortunately, there’s one guy, a mysterious chap with a painted face named ‘The Joker’ (Heath Ledger), standing in their way. He’ll stop at nothing to bring Gotham city, and his antagonist Dent, down. It’s already been said a million-and-one times, but the late Heath Ledger really does give the performance of his career as The Joker. He’s creepy, menacing and extremely easy to watch. Every bit of dialogue is delivered like the finest mantra, every bit of scenery chewed to the core. He’s over-the-top at times, sure, but he’s just as silently wicked at other times. This is an Oscar-calibre performance.
‘The Dark Knight’ is an epic film. A very long film. Director Christopher Nolan approaches this film as if it were any other film (in some respects, he treats it as a gangster film, not a superhero movie), and it completely works. In short, ‘The Dark Knight’ is the best Batman film ever made, the best superhero movie ever made, and the best movie of the year to date (Clint Morris).
