Movie Review: The Dark Knight - Darkest Before the Dawn - Page 3

The Dark Knight is not a superhero movie in the usual sense, but it is why superheros in comic books were created in the first place. It is a moral dilemma wrapped in entropic reality, stuffed inside an enigmatic situation that has no irreproachable resolution. For every "right" decision Batman makes, The Joker is quick to twist it into a wrong one. For every good deed Batman does, The Joker is sure to dearly punish him for it - -giving credence to The Joker's revealing quip, "You complete me!"

With its ambiguity distilling each situation with an existential heaviness more at home in an arthouse or French drama, the story manages to keep moving at a brisk pace with carefully timed action sequences. Batman makes his appearance in a swirling slugfest, leaving him with a desire to redesign his armor for more flexibility (including a cowl that lets him turn his head). There is an exciting high-energy chase during which part of the Batmobile converts to a fat-wheeled motorcycle, leading to an unexpected bat turn as Batman races toward a solid wall with no room to go around it. Another scene — reminiscent of the Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton long-barreled gun versus Batplane showdown in Tim Burton's Batman — has Batman going full-throttle toward a resolute Joker, who is anxious to fulfill a strong death instinct. While some of the synergy and complexity of The Dark Knight can be seen as drawn from Burton's film, Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, along with David S. Goyer, have written a story that extends the struggle between The Joker and Batman far beyond the fictional confines of Gotham City, challenging us with its dilemmas as well as the characters onscreen.

And the dilemmas are plentiful, indeed, as The Joker's schemes are carried out. Not only is Batman faced with the threat of people dying the longer he keeps his identity a secret, he is forced to decide between saving Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) or Harvey Dent, both trapped between drums of gasoline, wired to explode, and placed on opposite sides of Gotham, leaving him enough time to save only one of them. Another dilemma involves Batman's desperate expansion of Lucius Fox's (Morgan Freeman) cell phone sonar technology to listen to every cell phone conversation in Gotham. Desperate times call for desperate measures, but has Batman gone too far? When does it become justifiable to break the law in order to enforce it? Lucius, in a fit of moral pique, threatens to leave if his technology is used in this way. The pulsating visual effect of the sonar, as Batman hunts The Joker, is stunning.

Article Author: ILoz Zoc

Founder of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers (LOTT D), expiring writer of Zombos Closet of Horror Blog, and valet to Zombos, the noted B-movie horror actor (to his few remaining and decaying fans).

Visit ILoz Zoc's author page — ILoz Zoc's Blog