The Dark Knight (DVD)

'Don't believe the hype', as 'Flava Flav', the rapper dude who wears the big clock around his neck, once said, the flamboyant Public Enemy singers iconic Hip Hop line spot on when it comes to reviewing the big event movie of 2008. When you hear only great things about a film and enjoyed the previous one in the franchise you expect and want it to deliver, which, although the Dark Knight did in some aspects, it just didn't nail it in the critical categories a sequels must for me, especially in the superhero category. I'm not saying its poor or anything but just distinctly underwhelming for the money spent on it and the expectation I had.

Batman Begins and the new Spiderman films reinvigorated my interest in the genre, Toby McGuire's Spidey, joyously fun; Christian Bale rejuvenating Batman like Danny Craig has Bond. Batman Begins had a real dark edge to it and Bale made the role his own - enigmatic, brooding and most importantly, less camp, exactly what I wanted to get back on side. Effeminate men in capes with plumbers utility belts is what kept me away from this stuff for along time, Helen Slater's 'Supergirl' an exception, of course!
It just felt the Batman franchise is back in neutral or even reverse gear here, that camp coming back and the swagger gone. There was just no 'Kapow' factor! Most of the big action sequences that define this movie seem to be pinched from other movies, the skyscraper rescue scene clearly nicked from MI2. And what's with the Michael Mann/Heat opening, almost verbatim? The stunts just felt uninspiring and in many ways it was like the new Bond films, the gadgets and big stunts replaced by stretched out narrative and pointless spoken word from the original text. Even the films top totty in Maggie Gyllenhaal has gone blonde, morphing into the nauseating Kirsten Dunst, Spideys main squeeze.. The Bat Bike was kind of fun but you feel that was more about creating scenes for the video game than the integrity of the movie.

-The Cast-

Christian Bale ... Bruce Wayne / Batman
Heath Ledger ... The Joker
Aaron Eckhart ... Harvey Dent
Michael Caine ... Alfred Pennyworth
Maggie Gyllenhaal ... Rachel Dawes
Gary Oldman ... James Gordon
Morgan Freeman ... Lucius Fox
Monique Curnen ... Det. Anna Ramirez
Ron Dean ... Detective Wuertz
Cillian Murphy ... Scarecrow
Chin Han ... Lau
Nestor Carbonell ... Mayor Anthony Garcia
Eric Roberts ... Salvatore Maroni
Ritchie Coster ... The Chechen

-The Plot-

Gotham City's biggest bank has been robbed, 'The Joker' (Heath Ledger) the culprit, one of many successes he's had of late. When some vigilante guys dressed up as Batmen try to thwart his getaway the real Batman (Bale) has to save them and so not the money, and so the Joker escaping. Batman can't do it all on his own and so needs some help, but not by idiots in fancy dress carrying guns. So enter Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), the cities dashing District Attorney, determined to crack down on Gothams crime wave and having great success too. In fact he's doing so well Batman is even thinking of hanging up his wings, Dents methods courageous and effective, managing to even outmaneuver the essentially corrupt police force, only his trusty deputy in Officer Gordon (Gary Oldman) by his side still.

Batman's civilian guise is Bruce Wayne, the billionaire industrialist and head of 'Wayne Industries', who Bruce wants to use funds from to help fund Dents crime busting effort and his run for city major, finally cleaning up Gotham once and for all. Bruce likes him so much he is even happy to tolerate the fact he's dating his favorite girl, Rachael Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who secretly still has a soft spot for Bruce, she, Luscious Fox (Morgan Friedman) and Alf (Michael Caine), of course, the only people who know who Batman really is. Wayne really does think Dent is the man to clean up the city and wants to throw all his resources at the problem.

But the Joker has other ideas, attempting to unify all the disgruntled crime cartels of the city to work together and so against batman and Dent. He's going to offer them a deal they can't refuse, and if they don't like the terms then they too will go the way of Dent and his crusade, and if the Jokers methods of disposal are anything to go bye, it will be very painful. Knowing this can Batman really afford to step down any day soon as crimebuster-in-chief and, more importantly, can Dent be as perfect as he makes out?

-IMDB.COM Trivia-

Shortly before the film's DVD debut, Warner Brothers were under legal action by the city of Batman, Turkey (pronounced "bot-min") in November 2008. Even though it wasn't used in the title, the character name of Batman was considered an infringement.

An explosion was filmed at the Battersea Power Station in London. The fireball created calls from panic-stricken local residents, who assumed a terrorist attack had occurred at the out-of-use Station.

-The Conclusions-

The highlight of the movie by far is heath Ledgers amazing performance, fizzing out as much energy on screen as a nuclear reactor, stealing the movie to earn posthumous award nominations across the spectrum, the Academy also expected to have him up for 'Best Supporting'... If Sir Anthony Hopkins can win the Oscar for his 18 minutes of screen time in Silence of the Lambs and Judy Dench for her 7 minutes in Mrs Brown then Heath should be nailed on here. Sadly the handsome Australian actor committed suicide last year, playing the gay character in Brokeback Mountain, perhaps the final challenging role that pushed him over the edge he had been knowingly and deliberately balancing on leaning into a blizzard of Class A. Ledger died at the age of 28; seen as the peak age of beauty and vitality in Hollywood, an age that has taken some of cinemas greatest movie and rock icons from us, James Dean, Marilyn Munroe and Kurt Cobian to name but three. Britney Spears is 28 soon.

But coming back to the movie and you have to say it just lacked that movie magic you expect from the years big action blockbuster. At times it felt like Die Hard 3, The Joker playing the Jeremy Irons, 'Simon Says' character, a load of stuff getting blown up in-between to fill the gaping gaps around that soporific narrative. Why this movie needed to edge three hours is beyond me. The dialogue is comic book clunky, which is fair enough, you wouldn't expect anything else. In fact pretty much the whole movie is quoted on the Internet Movie Database (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/quot​es) because of its cult comic book following. Bales Batman, on the other hand, has definitely lost some of the intensity he created in Batman Begins, increasingly sounding like Clint Eastwood in cape as the movie dragged on. At one point I was expecting Lucius Fox to make him a bullet proof Bat Poncho!

Director Chris Nolan also seems to have skimped on the gothic textures of the movie, and dare I say it, going back to the Val Kilmer days with Batman. I was really disappointed in that side of what was a good product being eroded. I want dark Batman, not the commercial one - Kevlar not Lycra! Yes I'm sure this franchise is adhering closely to the comic books original mantra and that's why it did great business (the geeks earning it an extraordinary 9 out of 10 to claim the all-time top spot on imdb.com) but it has definitely lost something here second time out. And with a body count of 36 it's no way a 12A Certificate, which was what awarded here and why it did such record breaking business from a very run of the mill action film. This is cynical commercial film making at its most concise.

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Imdb.com scores it 9.0 out of 10.0 (333,657 votes)
159 minutes RuN-TiMe
5 for £5 weekly deal at Blockbusters .
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-Records-

Care/off Imdb.com

(unitl Avatar)

The first record The Dark Knight holds is box-office take for the largest opening weekend of all time. It made $158,411,483 in its first weekend of release, Spider-Man 3 (2007) holding the record the previous summer.

Along with Spider-Man 3 (2007) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), this film reached the $100 million mark the fastest, in only two days. With 4,366 locations, this film also helds the record for opening in the most venues on its release date, taking the record from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End from the previous summer.

Set a weekend box-office record for IMAX venues with $6.2 mil (until Avatar). Former record holder was Spider-Man 3 (2007).

When it was released on July 18, 2008, this film made $67.2 million in a single day, the most lucrative opening for any film (until Avatar). It reached the $400 million mark after 43 days of release, which is less than half the time it took Shrek 2 (2004), the former record-holder, to reach. This film reached the $300 million mark in only 10 days, setting yet another record then, needing only 5days to make $200 million, quickly achieving another box-office record. Titanic took three months to make back its $200 million cost.

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Summary: Not enough boom for your bucks