READERS' CHOICE #23: THE DARK KNIGHT (2008)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

10

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Yes, many times. It's also one of the very few movies that I saw more than once in the theatre when it was released

BEST SEQUENCE

Honestly this is a really tough call. The Dark Knight is so jam-packed with action scenes and set pieces that it feels like every time I watch it I remember whole chunks of the movie that I'd totally forgotten about, and I would be fine with pretty much any section of the movie being chosen as the best. This time, though, I'm going with the truck attack on the police convoy. If there's one thing I've learned in the last few years it's how much I appreciate a good car stunt, and when Christopher Nolan FLIPS AN 18-WHEELER it is just absolutely incredible.

BEST LINE

Another tough call. Rewatching it this time I was even surprised to realize how consistently quotable this movie is, how many lines have stuck around for years after the movie was released. For now, though, I'm going to go with "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

94%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"Dark, complex, and unforgettable, The Dark Knight succeeds not just as an entertaining comic book film, but as a richly thrilling crime saga."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"When a menace known as the Joker wreaks havoc and chaos on the people of Gotham, Batman, James Gordon and Harvey Dent must work together to put an end to the madness."

DIRECTOR

Christopher Nolan

MAIN CAST

Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Morgan Freeman

THOUGHTS

• Let's start with perhaps the least controversial thing I've ever said in these reviews: Heath Ledger is excellent in this film as the Joker. But more than that, I feel fairly confident in saying that not only is Ledger's performance my favourite performance in any superhero movie ever, it's one of the great villain performances of all time and all genres as well. He's terrifying, he's funny, he's violent, he's silly. Captivating and spellbinding, his performance draws you in completely. With all this said, it may be hard to believe that Ledger's only in about a fifth of the movie - he's in 33 minutes of the 2.5-hour movie, but man what an impact he makes. The unforgettable voice, the physical tics, the little humorous character beats; there's a moment I love when he's terrorizing the guests at the Harvey Dent fundraiser, and which I only really noticed on this viewing. He grabs a wine glass from one of the guests, and in doing so sloshes all of the wine out onto the floor. And then he takes a sip from the empty glass anyway. Just like the movie as a whole, this is a performance that always has something new for you to notice each time you watch it
• Heath Ledger was also the first person to win an acting Oscar for a comic book movie, an accomplishment that Joaquin Phoenix would also achieve by playing the same character (or, at least, another version of the same character) in Joker. Unfortunately, as we know, Ledger's Oscar win was also noteworthy for being only the second posthumous acting award given (after Peter Finch in Network). Ledger was certainly gone much too soon at the age of 28, but what an incredible career he managed to have in such a short amount of time
• But! Back to The Dark Knight. I've heard it said that a Batman movie lives and dies on the impact of its villain, and from the Batman films that I've seen (and I've seen most of them), I would agree with that sentiment. Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent/Two-Face is also a great villain (eventually; he's also a very effective co-protagonist), and I like him especially as a continuation of the Joker's schemes
• This is also a great Christian Bale performance, especially watching him bounce off of the Joker and try to bring him down without giving him exactly what he wants
• This is the only comic book/superhero movie we'll be discussing in these reviews, and I think that's probably appropriate. It's a pretty grounded movie, aside from the wild improbabilities and contrivances of many of the Joker's machinations, and in some ways it's more of a dark crime thriller than a typical superhero movie. In fact, Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan were influenced by movies like Heat and The Godfather while writing the script
• As far as comic book movies go, The Dark Knight is also noteworthy for another big reason: it came out in the same year as the very first MCU movie, Iron Man. Both were huge hits, and they were movies #1 and 2 at the box office that year, but The Dark Knight won by a couple hundred million. And yet, we all know how incredibly important Iron Man was, kicking off the MCU, and setting the stage for the last 15 years of blockbusters. And, on a personal note, Iron Man was the first movie review I ever wrote (as piddly as it was), back when I watched and wrote about every MCU movie at the beginning of this blog. As enjoyable as the Marvel movies were, though, I'm not sure I'd really call them thrilling. They were fun, they were exciting at times, and they were entertaining, but they lacked a certain heft that really made my heart pound, a level of thrills that The Dark Knight has in spades. At this point I also want to recommend a couple of really great articles from The AV Club by Tom Breihan, comparing and contrasting these two movies: Article #1 and Article #2
• Thinking back, as I went through all the Marvel movies I started to get so sick of all the CG effects, so bored with the lack of realness, and that's the last thing I want to say in comparing The Dark Knight with the MCU. In The Dark Knight, you can really feel the action. You believe what's happening on screen because, in a way, it actually is happening, much more so than so much of the action in the Marvel movies. Christopher Nolan is an incredible craftsman when it comes to practical effects, and it makes such a huge difference for me, especially in the context of a genre that can sometimes feel fantastical and fluffy. And, I'll say it again: he really flipped that truck!
• A while ago I mentioned that Quentin Tarantino was the only director I could think of whose entire filmography I'd seen, but I'm happy to say that this also applies to Christopher Nolan now. In the last year I watched Following and Insomnia, the two movies of his that I hadn't checked off the list yet, and all in all, his body of work is remarkable. As far as my favourite movies of his, we've actually now discussed two of my top three: in no particular order, The Dark Knight and Memento are definitely up there, and I think I'd add Inception (and if I get a good opportunity, maybe I'll review Inception as well some day)
• Side note, I was partly inspired to finish Nolan's filmography thanks to an excellent podcast, Blank Check with Griffin & David. This is a podcast that examines directors' whole filmographies, and it has become not just my favourite movie podcast, but one of my favourite podcasts of all time
• Up top I mentioned how hard it was to choose a favourite sequence and favourite line. I could go on and on and name many, but instead I'm going to give you a couple of runners-up for each
• Best sequence honourable mention: the opening bank robbery, and the Joker interrupting the meeting of crime bosses (which also has possibly my favourite line delivery in the movie: "You think you can steal from us and just walk away?" "Yeah")
• Best line honourable mention: "Some men just want to watch the world burn," and "Why so serious?"
• Finally, a little peek behind the curtain: for this review I didn't just watch The Dark Knight, I also rewatched Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises. I was going to write mini reviews of those movies as well, but this is a long review already, so I'm just going to condense my thoughts
• It's a good trilogy, and Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman are good in all three movies. I'm not a Batman expert, but it feels like the movies do the character justice. And, as mentioned above, Nolan films some great action scenes, with fantastic practical effects (the opening airplane sequence in Rises is also pretty incredible). But for me (and for most, surely), The Dark Knight is the best of the three by a fair margin, and again, it largely comes down to the villains. To be honest I find Batman Begins kind of boring, partly because I find Scarecrow and Ra's al Ghul kind of boring. And I really liked Anne Hathaway's Catwoman, but to close it off let's talk a little bit about Tom Hardy's Bane
• Because man, what a big swing that was. I loved Tom Hardy's brutal physicality, you really got the sense of how much damage he could do, but would we remember Bane at all if not for that voice? So much fun to imitate, and pretty impossible to forget, I support it as a character choice and a filmmaking choice in order to make a memorable villain. But here's the thing, Ledger's Joker also had an iconic voice, but that performance and that character were so good, I think we'd still be remembering the Joker regardless of what he sounded like. If Bane just sounded like a plain old tough guy, I'm pretty sure he, and the movie, would be largely forgotten
• OK, last thing before we close this out. I mentioned up top that I saw The Dark Knight multiple times in the theatre when it came out; I saw it twice. That distinction also goes to another movie we'll be discussing eventually, Hereditary. But there's only one movie that I can think of that I saw three times in the theatre: the 2007 film adaptation of Hairspray the musical. I contain multitudes

Up next: It's a rarity on the Readers' Choice list, a movie I haven't seen before! Point Break from 1991