The Dark Knight Movie Review

This movie was about the Joker and I have no idea why you would think otherwise. In this movie, the main character, the Joker, plans to make everybody in Gotham see the world the way he does, by infesting the mob, and going on killing sprees. This also means taking down aspiring DA Harvey Dent, the supporting character known as Batman, and many others.

First things first, this is one of the best movies ever. So do yourself a favor, stop reading this review and go watch it! But if you have already seen the movie, let’s get into it.

So in the second of movie of the Christopher Nolan Batman franchise, he really steps up the game with the villains. Yes I’m talking about the Joker. The main man himself. He is, in fact, the best on screen villain I have ever seen, and I’m not exaggerating. It was amazing to see the Crown Prince of Crime depicted in this way on the big screen. So of course, we have to give props to Heath Ledger (may he rest in peace).

Heath Ledger did a phenomenal job of getting into character as the Joker. First off there were rumors that he locked himself in a hotel room and while staring at the wall, just laughed, recording any thoughts he had down in a diary. He also told Christian Bale not go easy on him during an interrogation scene in the movie. Keeping in mind that Christian Bale was no small man (at the time), and his punches probably hurt quite a bit. That’s commitment to a character.

Heath Ledger’s time spent preparing all paid off as his on screen interpretation of the Joker was like none seen before. The real trouble with superhero movies are often its villain, especially today. In 2016 people are so focused on the heroes themselves that they forget to make a good villain. Often what happens in movies is that they create the same villain. The same villain as every one before it, and it gets kind of stale.

What makes the Joker new is his motivation. He does not want to take over the world, he doesn’t money or power either. Those are simply items required to get him to his real goal. And what's his real goal? Well that isn’t always clear. If you watch the movie it might seem that he just does what he does because he can or maybe he’s just crazy right? But that’s a cop out. And to say the Joker is actually clinically sane ads so much more to his character.

The Joker had one bad day that turned him into a lunatic. And all he wants to do is prove to everybody that they really aren’t too different from himself, and they are just one bad day away from being him. He thinks that our preconceptions of moral justice and order are funny, and just a bad joke. As a man who has seen how cruel the world can be, just wants everybody to see the world as he does, as something horrifically funny. Nothing means anything, and all the Joker really wants to do is show everybody how flimsy their ideals of order are, and how easily chaos can come. He finds it amusing to see the world burn after it burned him so much, because some men just want that. However that’s just my analysis and you can take the Joker’s motivation as you will, since it is never clearly stated what he wants.

Heath Ledger’s performance showed that in every way. He was a deranged lunatic who really made you scared. You never knew what was going to happen next and it kept you on your toes. Like I said, most performances today are so by the numbers that if you’ve seen any movie ever, you will know what happens next. However this Joker, embodied by Heath Ledger, stunned, frightened, and entertained everybody.

The other person who did really well was Aaron Eckhart as DA Harvey Dent. He was quite strong in the beginning and really appeared to be the picture perfect, clean political man that we all want. Whilst descending into madness, as the Joker so careful planned out, he was still interesting, but after the high of the Joker, Dent’s character seemed rather low.

And this is leads me to my next point, which is I didn’t like the ending of this movie. Near the end of the movie, the Joker had been apprehended, and his protégé, Dent or “Two Face”, was now the reigning villain we had to watch. For starters, he wasn’t mad at the Joker for killing his girlfriend/fiancée, he was mad at Gordon for some reason! It makes no sense, and although it was cool to see the Joker’s planned fulfilled, it felt all wrong. The other thing was that they blamed Batman for all the death that Dent had caused because they didn’t want the good politician's name ruined. However they could have blamed the Joker, since he had been killing people the whole movie and nobody would have argued otherwise (and it sort of was his fault). Batman really didn’t need to take the blame for all that. It all just didn’t make sense.

However the rest of the movie was a delight. It was well scripted and acted. If we were to nitpick, there were plenty of small plot incongruities (but I won’t get into them because overall the movie was awesome).

Besides the ending, the only thing wrong with this movie is the lack of Batman. “The Dark Knight?” This movie should have been called the “Clown Prince of Crime”. The Joker was so interesting and it felt like from my viewing perspective that more time was spent on the Joker than on Batman himself (not that it was a problem since the more time with the Joker the better). But what I’m saying is maybe they could have had more of Batman. Maybe.

Still this movie was awesome and I give it a 9.3 out of 10. The only way to make it better would be to have more Batman and to get rid of the ending sequence.