Movie Review: The Dark Knight (2008)

Finally got to see the Dark Knight after being unable to go this past weekend. Drove off to another town just to realize that the showing was sold off, and came back to the local mall for a later showing. Ok, great, after half an hour of driving in a perplexed state, we got seats, grab food and beverages, theater ends up full to capacity, watch trailers, excitement grows, heck we see the trailer for Christian Bale future movie as John Connor in Terminator: Salvation. Exciting, I can’t wait I thought! Movie is about to start and then suddenly idiots appear in the left corner of my eyes. Apparently inoffensive kids next to me become giddy at sight of idiots. One of the idiot comes and sits his idiot self in the seat next to me. Now the entire row of idiots on my left doesn’t care about the movie. Idiots talk, cuddle, make noises, use cell phone during entire movie. Not obnoxious enough to be kicked out, but just enough to make me contemplate whether I should atomic kick someone in the throat and if the Marine Corps has a waiver for felonies such as assault and battery… Just kidding but in any case, much as in the movie, I had my own inner fighting between good and bad.

Let’s get on with the movie. What can I say that hasn’t been said… Nothing. I was blown away. Great acting all the way through from Christian Bale as Batman all the way down to the smallest role in the movie. Heath Ledger as the Joker was mind-bogglingly perfect. This can’t be stated enough whether he was alive or dead. They better not bring back the Joker in subsequent movies because that would be a crime. Excellent script, great lines, unspectacular fighting scene the way it should be: Batman is not superhuman. The movie is dark, I was shocked to see that Rachel Dawes died. Nothing against Maggie Gyllenhaal because she is a brilliant actress, but Katie Holmes was at least half-decent looking and this really doesn’t say much. Part of the fascination about Batman is that he is also Bruce Wayne, a handsome billionaire who could get whatever he wants and those ladies are somewhat of a mismatch with this picture. But then again, Holmes’ questionable acting skills would have been exposed in that explosion scene and Gyllenhaal nailed it. Nevertheless, just think of classic beauties WITH acting talent like Amy Adams or Rachel McAdams (she turned it down) as Rachel Dawes in both Batman Begins and this movie, and those movies would have reached the stratospheric level. Anyways, they won’t have that problem anymore and I guess it makes it easier for the audience to see Gyllenhaal get blown up lol…

In all, superb movie and definitely one of my favorite of all-time already. I’m going to go watch it again in a few days, minus the idiots.

A-: A Masterpiece. Period.

Some of those great lines:
“would you wait one second please? I’m a little busy” when Gordon foils the Joker’s attempt to kill Batman
“I don’t want to kill you. You complete me“
“I believe whatever doesn’t kill you simply makes you… stranger”
“You prefer a magic trick, instead? Watch me make this pencil disappear.” (Priceless)
“Hmm.. Very poor choice of words.”

Last little detail I wasn’t a big fan of: Batman’s new suit, the streamlined, simple capped suit from Batman Begins was so much better looking, it had an aura of authority about it.