The Dark Knight

I know I know, everyone and their grandma has an opinion on this film, but seeing as we only got it here a few days ago, I am going to have my say.

Not that I really know what to say. Is it a good film? Yeah, I guess so. It didn’t rock my world or anything, I wasn’t totally sucked in, although that may have had more to do with the shitty cinema, annoying talkers, people’s phones ringing and being answered than it did the film. Honestly, people suck. But it was another of those films that kept me firmly in my seat and not at all ‘in it’. Which is a shame. Some of it is excellent. A lot of it is unnerving and I jumped more times than I probably had any right to. But it’s also overly long, and I couldn’t tell you much about the actual plot, it was just there.

With all the hype about Heath Ledger’s performance I wondered if it would stand up, but it did. In fact it’s so good that the film itself isn’t really worthy of it. He outshines everything and everyone he shares a scene with. He’s scary and twisted and basically just bloody brilliant.

The other shining star of the film is Aaron Eckhart, the white knight indeed. I’ve had sort of a soft spot for him since Erin Brockovich, and he didn’t disappoint here. His portrayal of Harvey Dent touched me more than anything else in the film, because if you know anything about Batman lore (as I do having a. seen the shitty other Batman films, and b. have a comic book nerd for a brother), you know what’s coming. And this backstory makes what’s coming all the more worse. I didn’t want it to happen to him. He was the good guy.

Batman on the other hand, well, I can take him or leave him. I’m not totally sold on Bale’s performance, though I’m not sure if this is just the way it’s meant to be. He is the anti-hero after all. But I don’t really like him. I don’t feel for him (except for maybe one point at the end, but even then it was pushing it), I don’t really care about him. Bruce Wayne is obviously set up as a playboy that we’re not supposed to like that much, but even when he wasn’t being the public Wayne, I found him overly smug and annoying. And as Batman? Well his stupid husky voice drove me nuts. I know he’s hiding his identity and everything, but it’s just comical. As was the continuing use of ‘the batman’ to refer to him. I sort of get it, but it still made me laugh every time they said it.

I can see why people love it so, and have gone crazy for it. It’s nice to have a super hero film that isn’t corny or campy and stupid, that takes its source material seriously and tries to be as realistic as possible, but in the end it was just ok for me. I was hoping to be blown away, but I wasn’t, not even close.