First Review

Looking back at a little known film (haha, sarcasm) known as Batman Begins, a person like myself is filled with pride and joy and a helluva lot of squealing. But in a manly way, I assure you. For you see, Batman Begins is a film that renewed my love and faith in the world of superhero movies. Well, the two Spider-Man films also did that (what? there's only two!), but they have nothing to do with what I'm about to review. A film that needs no introduction. A film that a good friend of mine (Shout out to Isaac Movie Database!) doesn't consider the GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME. It's not even out on DVD yet and they're talking about a re-release! Yes, the one... the only... the Nolan: DARK KNIGHT.

I'll wait for your applause.

Done? Let's move on.

I'm not going to talk about the film. We all know it's awesome. And if you haven't seen it, I'm going to suggest you get banned from all visual stimulation until you have seen it at least twice. But I'm more interested, this procrastinated evening, in talking about the expectations I had going into this film. Not that anybody's really interested in my humble and biased opinion. But I'm also interested in seeing what other people were expecting moving from Batman Begins to Dark Knight. Yes, that means you Kiminem.

Okay, so I'll be honest. When they said that the dude from Brokeback Mountain and 10 Things I Hate About You was going to play the greatest Batman Villain of all time, I almost threw up a small country. I was in vehement denial until I saw the pictures. That curved my judgement a bit, but I was still not convinced. Then I saw the trailer.

SOLD. Like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.

There are a few times when hype doesn't work for a movie. Somehow, though, the people that marketed the Dark Knight must've stumbled upon the Bible of Awesome and managed to give both fans of Batman (Begins and the character in general) something to look forward to for months. It's very hard to push a movie as hard as the Dark Knight was pushed, without gaining naysayers or going overboard. In some cases, people are even bored with a movie's "hype" before they even get to see the execution or delivery of the film. There are films such as The Matrix Revolutions and Spider-Man 3 that spent a good bulk of their time gaining a buzz and pushing their start and sequel power to their limits, only to have people leaving the theaters in a venomous rage and wanting to get both their money and those hours back. However, in the case of Dark Knight, the delivery is almost flawless, which is an amazing feat in and of itself.

I attribute this to Christopher Nolan. I read in an interview that after the success of Dark Knight, that Warner Bros follows Christopher Nolan's lead on the projects surrounding the Batman franchise. While he had already proved himself to be a competent director with films such as Memento, Insomnia and The Prestige, he doesn't need to "prove" he has the chops to do this, anymore. Still, though, he's taken the "blockbuster" to a whole new level with Dark Knight. The acting is superb, to say the least, as Christian Bale and Heath Ledger both play their roles with skill. Though, Heath takes the cake and steals the entire movie with a performance that should make Jack Nicholson fly over the cuckoo's nest. But the bulk of this movie's success, I think, should be attributed to Christopher Nolan.

The film is shot astoundingly. Choosing Chicago as a filming location for the fictional city of Gotham was a smart choice and it works out so well with everything that the film ended up being. I really felt like I was in the middle of Gotham, during each of the like fifteen times I've watched this film. It's incredible. I'm likely getting off track here, so let me reel this thing back in. Christopher Nolan's own expectations for making the Dark Knight were more like challenges he set upon himself and his crew. He knew the envelopes he pushed with Batman Begins and even spent many conversations with his team discussing how to make things bigger. How to make Dark Knight that much better than Batman Begins. Not just to make more money or make a better film, but to do something that hasn't been done before. Something like, oh, flipping a mack truck.

Personally, I expected so many things from this movie that I can't even begin to list them all and the Dark Knight delivers on an epic scale. From the amazing acting to the compelling story and the gripping dialogue (minus the dreaded and often comical "Bat Voice"), this movie kept me on the edge of my seat the very first time I saw it and still continues to do so. As many times as I've seen it, I can practically talk out what's going to happen next and I still feel myself surprised when it actually happens. It's a fun ride and there's no reason to not get on it. I even enjoyed the score, because it draws you in and helps to play a part in whether or not you're emotionally invested into the scene your watching or not.

As a Batman fan, I was seriously worried about how they were going to do Two Face. Of all the Batman Villains, Two Face is my favorite. I enjoy the character's duality issues and the fact that he leaves important choices in his life up to chance. I have a lot of comic history with Two Face in my mind, which kind of makes me partial to the way he's portrayed in the comics. But I was even capable of going with this origin story created for the Dark Knight. I usually get pissed off when it comes to straying too far from the comic foundation (like giving Spider-Man "natural" webbing, in that movie), but it works for the world that Christopher Nolan has created and it's given me faith that not all translations from comic to film have to be ruined.

I humbly recommend this film to everyone that's not like... under 13. There are some violent scenes and Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker can be downright scary at some points, which may be too much for younger viewers to handle. A certain "pencil trick" comes to mind. But it's still one of the best films I've ever seen in my life. The story is epic and fantastical, but still grounded in enough "movie realism" that you can actually believe that this stuff could happen. Which is something I believe is key to making a good superhero, or comic book, film. You have to be able to trick your audience into believing that these are more than just characters ripped from the pages of a 4.95 leaflet and thrown onto a screen with an actor that resembles their drawn features. These are people, like you and me, that have been thrust into amazing and dangerous lives. And that's what makes them heroes.

But I'm not even going to lie. I was rooting for the Joker the entire time.

- Jason "Why So Serious?" Newbern