Note: This is the 14th installment of 52 Movies, a year long journey through movies on this site. Yes, it’s horribly behind and I have no idea exactly how it’s going to catch up right now. For other installments in this series, click here.
“I believe in Harvey Dent.”
We’ve grown used to a Batman so emotionally and mentally scarred by his parent’s death that putting on a black spandex and armored costume the rest of his life seems to be the only logical answer. In the comics, the cartoons and the previous movies, there was no hope end in sight because there was no hope that Bruce Wayne’s crusade would ever be complete. Or else, the only end would be death and then proteges like Robin or Nightwing could take over. Christopher Nolan approaches Bruce Wayne’s mission differently. In Batman Begins and now in The Dark Knight, maybe Batman is only supposed to be a stop gap measure until someone better than he comes along.
That someone better appears to be Gotham D.A. Harvey Dent. Now if you’re at all familiar with Batman myth, you know the tradegy that awaits Harvey. Nolan and his screenwriting partner (and brother) Jonathan Nolan take that tragedy and tie it into Batman’s mission. At the beginning of the movie, Bruce Wayne sees a day when he’ll no longer need to be Batman, when a more public hero will be able to take on the mission and purpose of saving Gotham City. Bruce Wayne even starts to take action to make sure that Harvey Dent will be that person. Of course, the end of Batman’s war on crime also means the day he’ll get to be with his love (and Harvey’s current girlfriend) Rachel Dawes. So Bruce Wayne’s desire to move beyond Batman is for himself as much as it is for Gotham City.
And we all know that what we want and what we need are two separate things.
The Dark Knight is about Bruce Wayne’s desires and the choices he makes regarding those desires. It’s about who he chooses to support, who he chooses to save and even who he chooses to believe in. This isn’t the psychologically damaged Batman who’s only outlet is to put on a costume and beat up people. This isn’t about the obsessive compulsive who thinks that he’s the only one who can heal Gotham. For the first time in a long time (since well before Frank Miller got his hands on Bruce Wayne,) Bruce Wayne is a man, a real character who’s failings are in his dreams and his choices.
Following that, The Dark Knight is a fantastic movie filled with real characters. For all the talk about “comic book movies” this summer, The Dark Knight lives up to the hype and expectations in that is first and foremost a movie about people who want to protect their city. That there are superheroes and costumed criminal running around is almost secondary to that. Iron Man, Hulk and Hellboy, while good, are superhero movies where the costume, origin and concept are central to the movie. With The Dark Knight, the mission of the Batman is central to the movie. Here’s a character with real choices that none of the other characters have and a true purpose, again which none of the other characters have in their movie versions. Even in the first film, Bruce Wayne didn’t really have any choices to make. He just had to follow the plot from point A to point B.
The biggest flaw to The Dark Knight may be showing just how standard of a super-hero movie Batman Begins was. While that movie elevated the game, it didn’t surpass the game the way that The Dark Knight seems to do. Unlike most superhero movies that have one or two good performances, The Dark Knight is just packed with them. In fact, Christian Bale’s may be the weakest one. Bale either appears stiff and uncomfortable as Bruce Wayne or still uses that sillly growling voice as Batman. Maggie Gyllenhal’s Rachel Dawes is easily 10 times better than what we’ve had before. She’s a character caught between two men that she loves and like everyone else, has her own choices to make. As Commissioner Gordon (yes, he gets that promotion this movie,) Gary Oldman is calm, collected and barely holding everything together as all sides try to tear him apart.
Of course, the strength of the movie is in it’s two new characters– the Joker and Harvey Dent. You’ve heard everything about Heath Ledger’s performance and it’s all mostly true. He’s unhinged and disturbing in all the right ways. His Joker is the representation on anarchy. He doesn’t want to destroy everything– he just wants to completely turn the natural order on its head so down is up and right is wrong. He doesn’t want to destroy Batman because where would the fun be in that? Aaron Ekhart’s performance as Harvey Dent is going to get overshadowed by Ledger’s performance and that’s too bad. Even if you know the fate that awaits Dent, Ekhart shows Dent as a driven, compassionate and true character. He’s the light to Batman’s darkness.
All the characters have choices to make and the biggest one turns out to be who lives and who dies. That’s a choice that has to be made often by different people in this movie– who lives and who dies. It’s never a simple choice or an obvious choice. And that’s what’s great about The Dark Knight. It’s never simple. Christopher Nolan, his characters and his cast never take the easy way out.
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Tags: Batman, Batman Begins, Christian Bale, Christopher Nolan, Heath Ledger, Joke, The Dark Knight