The Dark Knight Reviews

I like this film a lot..Excellent performance of the main carachters: Christian Bale, Heath Legder(RIP)
and Michael Caine.
My only question is: They finish all budget and they can' t pay a better woman for the female carachter???
Any girl from the Russian Ballet would be better...
She is simply awful...

Before it came out, there was such a buzz about this movie and, personally, I thought that the whole thing was seriously overhyped. But guess what? In spite of those huge expectations, Nolan managed to deliver the goods and in a big way. What can I say that hasn't already been said about this movie ? It's just the best super-hero movie out there. Period. It is is rather funny to think that before it was released, 'Spider-Man 2' used to be considered the best in this genre. I mean, Sam Raimi's opus was a decent and entertaining blockbuster, that's for sure, but compared to how Nolan revolutionized the genre with this 2nd Batman installment, it wasn't that amazing. Nolan's sequel was also the proof (just like 'Inception' a few years later) that you could make a commercial movie, make a lot of bucks and still making a damn entertaining and not completely brainless picture at the same time. Never before a super-hero feature had been so epic with such a great cast, such awesome action scenes and such a memorable bad guy thanks to an exceptional performance by the late Heath Ledger. Still, even though I'm wildly enthusiast about this flick, it is not even the best thing Nolan has done in his short career as I prefer his work not involving the Cape crusader such as 'The Prestige' or 'Memento', his ultimate masterpiece, in my opinion. To conclude, it is basically already a modern classic and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

*Possible spoilers ahead*

After a year and a half long wait, the sequel to the brilliant Batman Begins(2005), is finally here and boy did I enjoy it! It surpasses all my expectations and is FAR SUPERIOR to Begins. A Sequel which is far better and will be remembered for doing so. I you thought Begins was good, you will be plesently suprised. The Dark knight is as great as everyone says it is and more I'm still finding the words to describe even several days after watching it.

Yes, before I started watching the film, I knew Heath Ledger's perfromance would be amazing in the role of the Joker, and I was right. I have to admit that it didn't suprise me one bit. The time that he took to perfect his rol and the perfection in his voice, mannerisms and behaviour is just outstanding. He's created a character that's incredibly menacing and even in a 12A film, scary to watch. I'm sure he'll receive a post homours Oscar nomation, winning it I'm not so sure. It'll be down to whether the Academy can avoid the snobbery that they have over blockbuster films winning at the Oscars. He's character was also very funny and had several one liners, which I did laugh at. I don't think I'll ever forget his performance. It'll always be in my top five of all time.

Christian Bale repises his role as the caped crusader and has obtained a far huskier voice, which was great to hear. Bale is now my favourite Batman and I'm sure others would agree. Even as Bruce Wayne he oozes coolness in every scene he's in. His Batman is far darker than many previously and makes for a great character to watch.Bale also plays he's character tremendouly well and should be given credit for that, Also worth mentioning Aaron Eckhart's tremendous perfromance as two-facem who I didn't think would be good at all. Worth mentioniong Gary Oldman's Lt Gordon, Maggie Glyyenhaal's and Morgan Freeman's perfromance aswell, who all delivered fine performances. I'd really like to see Bale get some sort of credit for his performance, as it really was great.

The Dark Knight's cinematography was absolutly breathtaking to watch. In particular the sublime, opening sequence, which was inspired by Heat-which you can see . The colours, and sequences filmed just added a little realism to the films, giving it that post 9/11 feel. It also adds a little fear to the viewer, for instance in the Mayot's funeral. It drwas upon real events, which is just superb. Talking of superbm that Opening sequence was outstanding to watch. One of my favourite shots was one of the Joker, in the middle of the street, in almost a God like stance. Everything in the scene is quite shocking to watch. The joker and his henchman don't just feel like characters in a film-where you can just write them off. These characters really feel real and the sounds of the guns shots, in this scene only emphathises this. One classic line which I won't forget by the Joker.

I believe what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger..

The screenplay in the Dark Knight has to be one of the finest that I've seen for a summer blockbuster...since..well forever. It is obviously responsible for some great lines in the film. The scenes with the Joker and Batmanl, for instance-The iterrogation scene. I'm sure the screenplay will be up for an Oscar ans it is one of the best parts of the film for me. Loved this line from Alfred..

Some men just want to watch the world burn!

Nolan has now set the bar for Great summer blocckbusters. Everything in the film is FLAWLESS. The running time of nearly 3 hours flew b. His direction is absoulty outstanding. I just hope BAFTA award him with a Best Director nod next year.

The Dark Knight contains some amazing camer shots. For instance, as I mentioned before-that opening shot of the Jokers-WOW. One sequence towards the end, was just sensational to watch. I just hope this is the start of great summer blockbusters to come.

The score by Hans Zimmer is just sensational to hear. Every single piece of music livens up every scene and just get an absoulte buzz, when you watch it. You can;t help but cheers and smile when you hear part of that score. Just mesmerising. I hope it gets awarded at next years Oscars aswell.

I really think the editing is one of the sucess points of the film. The pinning together of some scenes , two or three at some stages really addes tension to the scene and sheer joy for the viewer. This adds to the experience and really makes it one hell of an enoyable experience.

Overall The Dark Knight is an absoulte MASTERPIECE. Filled with sublime acting, cinematorgpahy, excellent editing, screenplay. Expect the Dark Knight to receive several BAFTA noms and some OSCARS noms. I can't tell you how great this film is and how musch I enjoyed it. You must go along and see it for yourself.

Oustanding.

Highly recomended

10/10

Fantastic movie all the way around. All the main characters are at top performance in this film. Heath Ledger was truly incredible!

We've been subjected to enormous amounts of hype and marketing for the Dark Knight. We've seen Joker scavenger hunts and one of the largest viral campaigns in advertising history and it culminates with the actual release of the movie.

Everything that's been said is pretty much spot on. This is the first time I can remember where a summer blockbuster film far surpasses the hype.

For as much action as there is in this movie, it's the acting that makes it a great piece of work. Between all the punches, explosions and stunt-work is some great dialog work. All the actors have their moments.

Bale's Batman is the definitive Batman because we see everything in this character finally on film. Martial arts skills, cunning, great tactical thinking, forensic application, technological genius to advance or improve Luscious Fox's inventions/technological breakthroughs, intimidating personality, and even a little swashbuckling.

As for Heath, yes he gets credit for his performance as the Joker. But you have to also recognize Jonathan and Chris Nolan for the writing and treatment of the character. It's not just the fact that Ledger makes the Joker so menacing, but the Nolans have given the character this great manifesto that drives its actions. The Joker's stance on chaos, order, anarchy, the morality of the average modern human being make the character so interesting psychologically. The Nolans drafted a complex character and only a perfect performance could've pulled something like this off. That's how difficult of a role this was, and that's why Ledger's performance is so great.

This isn't an action movie. It's a film that explores literary themes of the hero and villain, as well as order and anarchy. Yes, listen to the dialog because it's all in there.

--After seeing Christian Bale proving himself as a premium Batman, in Batman Begins.(Even if the batman "gutturals" are hilarious). Batman is my favorite super hero. Why? He has no REAL powers and it's all about skill and training. Which I enjoy rather than my least favorite: Superman. Anyways, The Dark Knight has a sterling intro and gets you hooked and go "what the poop?" right away. One of my favorite intros to this day.


--Heath Ledger really was The Joker, just sterling I say. However, I feel most loved it and thought it was legendary, due to his unfortunate death. Sorry but that's an insult to his face. If he was alive, he would have NOT have gotten so much hype and thats a shame. He really was THAT great!

--Morgan Freeman is my main man and his choices/roles he decides to be in are always cool. As a friend of Batman?? That's awesome! Almost as Awesome as Michael Cain as Alfred! LOVE IT.

--The plot is really jaw-dropping and eye grabbing. I enjoyed EVERY second of it. Harvey Dent was pretty decent, I still prefer Tommy Lee Jones tho..that's me. Aaron is really cool so it works well with the film.

--The Cast is already amazing there's no way...wait..Gary Oldman?? YES my friend! Gary Freakin' Oldman as Gordon once again is BOSS.
--Basically the dialogue is outstanding and written with excellence. The BLOW-UPS and action..are just WOW!!!!WHAT?!?!

--The only part I did not like, same with Batman Begins, is Bruce Wayne's love interest. They can't seem to cast someone who capture's a love interest, with EXQUISITE beauty. I didn't like Maggie Gyllenhaal and she isn't THAT attractive. There are far better choices like: Jennifer Connelly, Evan Rachel Wood, Naomi Watts..just to name a few.

--This movie is an EPIC adventure to be viewed among many with great taste. Cheers to the next film!

Rating: 10/10

Intensely thrilling and impeccably acted, The Dark Knight is one of the best movies to be released this summer. Despite its lengthy running time, it rarely strays from keeping the audience engaged, and it is a lot more intelligent than several films of its kind. Christopher Nolan and a stellar cast bring us a very good piece of cinema that is every bit as effective as the film that preceded it. Both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight represent the most insightful and successful take on the Caped Crusader ever committed to the big screen.

As much as I'm not always fond of agreeing with majority opinion, there's no avoiding the truth: Heath Ledger is absolutely the highlight of this film, to the point that the movie sometimes even feels like it loses some of its steam whenever The Joker isn't on-screen. Prior to watching The Dark Knight, I was definitely skeptical of the hype over his performance. This wasn't because I don't believe he was a great actor. Of course he was. He gave incredibly devastating performances in Brokeback Mountain, Monster's Ball and Candy, and he's also practically unrecognizable in his role in Lords of Dogtown, much like his equally unrecognizable work here as The Joker. But I was skeptical about all the praise because I feared it could just be sympathetic hyperbole due to his passing away last January. I was quite relieved when I realized this wasn't the case, upon watching the film. While one could argue with those who are giving the film accolades of masterpiece or best superhero film ever or the solution to all of the world's problems, there is NO arguing that what Ledger does here is a work of genius.

The face-painted villain is enthralling and great to watch from the very first few seconds he appears on camera. There's irony in terms of the fact that, although he certainly conveys a relentlessly terrorizing menace, he also does live up to his name in that he provides several laughs to the audience (at least it did for the audience at the midnight showing that I attended on Thursday night). These laughs, however, are obviously more of a result of the evil, sadistic humor that we also got from Javier Bardem and Michael Pitt's respective villains in No Country For Old Men and Funny Games (speaking of those two and of Ledger, what a wonderful last few months it has been for films with great villains). Another thing that I found to be ironic was that The Joker, anarchist fiend that he is, claims that he never makes any plans and/or organizes anything: "I just do!" Yet he certainly comes up with several ingenious and well thought-out schemes throughout the film.

There's not a single qualm to be had with any of the performances, all of which range from excellent to very good. Aside from Heath Ledger, I thought that Gary Oldman was also great as Lieutenant Gordon, and that he's not necessarily getting as much credit as he deserves (his character is also far more important to the film than we might initially guess). Aaron Eckhart has a tough job with the crucial role of Harvey Dent; he's not great, because he does go over the top sometimes, but considering the difficulty of playing this character, he's certainly very good. As they did in Batman Begins, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman bring the same level of class that they always bring to films they star in (Caine's Alfred, in particular, is great at serving insight often with a side of humor). Supplanting Katie Holmes in the role of Rachel Dawes, Maggie Gyllenhaal neither helps nor hurts the role of the girl who got away from our hero. Many people made gross exaggerations about Holmes' performance being terrible, which it wasn't. She did well with what she had to work with, and so does Gyllenhaal. The only negative remarks I expect people could make about the acting is that Christian Bale doesn't get much space to really act, since he's usually wearing the mask. Although the hype will certainly continue focusing on Ledger, Bale is (yet again) fantastic whenever the mask does come off, and it's a shame that he may not end up getting as much recognition as he deserves.

The Dark Knight takes several twists and turns that will keep people on the edge of their seats and that make the film a constantly enjoyable experience. In particular, more than one important character dies during the film, leading to a great deal of surprises (at least for me, since I didn't read any spoilers prior to seeing it, even though it seems several people did). The film only has a few drawbacks. As I mentioned before, The Joker is indeed the highlight here, and the problem is that there are times that, when Ledger's terrifying specimen isn't on-screen, nothing we're watching is anything we haven't seen before or anything that would lead me to view this as the groundbreaking film many are hailing it to be. A great performance doesn't necessarily translate into a great film; Javier Bardem was excellent as Anton Chigurh, but his performance was only ONE of the many things that made No Country For Old Men great. In addition, while the majority of the action sequences are very well-choreographed, the most important ones (which come in the last act) are edited a bit choppily, and I DON'T think this is necessarily due to a lack of competence by the editors, but rather the consequence of a film that tries to coalesce a lot of characters and plot elements into a final cohesive action sequence, and that makes this all a little more disorderly and overwhelming than it should be. Speaking of the film's final act, I must note that the "social experiment" that takes place (compliments of The Joker, of course) is very, very interesting; I won't say much about it, so as to not spoil things for those who haven't seen it (but beware to keep reading if you haven't), but those who HAVE seen it obviously know that I'm talking about the conundrum with the two ships. Unfortunately, interesting as it is, the flaw with it is that the outcome is exactly what we've come to expect from superhero movies. A character says "Let me do what you should've done 10 minutes ago," and he then does the opposite of what the audience thinks he's going to do; sure, the surprise is nice, but since this twist that leads to a positive outcome feels like such a conventional contrivance for a film of said genre, I guess it's disappointing in some senses, ESPECIALLY considering the darker undertones the film aims for. Still, none of these minor drawbacks take away from what is definitely a largely superior entry into the superhero film realm.

Is it the best superhero film of the year? Possibly. I've given a 7 to both this and Iron Man, though this is certainly a more complex film. However, "more complex" doesn't always mean "better" because complexity isn't the only important consideration in evaluating a movie, and in my case, I enjoyed both equally. Is it the best superhero film of all time? I can absolutely understand why a lot of people would think it is, and I certainly don't think there's much I could say to debate it, but on the level of personal opinion, I have more appreciation for the first two Spider-Man films (the second of which is one of my all-time favorite films), and also for the second entry into the X-Men series (X2: X-Men United). That said, though, The Dark Knight is definitely better than the first X-Men movie, the two Hellboy films, the two Fantastic Four films, and it is a heck of a lot better than Superman Returns and than both of the third entries into the Spider-Man and X-Men franchises, both of which were serious disappointments considering what both franchises had accomplished with each of their first two entries. One can only hope that this won't happen if Nolan and his team decide to do a third film.

Although WALL-E still remains the best film to be released in what has, thus far, been a relatively unimpressive year for cinema, The Dark Knight is right up there as one of the most well-crafted cinematic offerings we've had in 2008. I don't think it is suitable for younger audiences that aren't ready for the darker themes it touches upon, but it is incredibly good as a source of entertainment for older teenagers and adults. A lot of hype has surrounded Heath Ledger's performance because of the fact that he died recently, but the truth is that his praiseworthy turn in The Dark Knight is unforgettable, NOT because of his untimely death, but because it is one of the most haunting villainous performances I've ever witnessed, sure to stay in people's minds long after the credits roll.

Fantastic movie with great actors and great music,
box office smash!!

The hype is true. Dark, thrilling and intense. Heath Ledger is fantastic.
Nominated for 8 Academy Awards. Winner of 2 including Best Supporting Actor for Heath Ledger.
Starring Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Nestor Carbonell, and Morgan Freeman.

"The Dark Knight", quite possible the best movie I have ever seen. I went to the cinema expecting an amazing film... it exceeded my already high expectations, something I don't think it happens very often. It is also the only movie that I watched twice on the big screen, ever! It was that good.

This movie works as a stand-alone story but it obviously continues the events of "Batman Begins" which happens to be one great movie as well. However, after watching "The Dark Knight" I look at "Batman Begins" and what I see is the prequel of a masterpiece.



So what is this film? It's basically a breath-taking action flick, a suspenseful crime story, a psycological thriller, a character development ride with unexpected drama and an amazingly well-told story with great direction, groundbreaking performances, incredible visuals and a memorable soundtrack. Oh I forgot to mention a little detail, it is also a superhero movie, and he has a bike.

So you could say that this movie here on this list, represents all that is good in the 7th art.

Ok now on a more serious note, this movie is a thrilling superhero action movie with a great police/mob story and one of those villains you will never forget.



Do I need to mention the Joker? I don't think I need to mention the Joker... But I will say that he is definitely ONE of the highlights of this movie (and probably the best one with that otherworldly performance) and he makes the film more interesting. However this movie is a complete success, it's a great achievement on the whole, not just a good movie with some successful elements in it... It's an amazing collective, the film, with outstanting individualities, the joker; the bike; etc.

So please enjoy this amazing movie on the whole. It's natural to be stupefied when watching those scenes with pencils or hospitals, but don't let them steal you total attention from the masterpiece of deep visual entertainment that is this movie.