The Dark Knight Review I Wrote at 3:00AM Just Minutes After the Midnight Release

Sorry if I skip around a lot...it is 3 in the morning.

If you thought Batman Begins was amazing, just wait until you see this.

At the start of Dark Knight, Batman (Christian Bale) is doing his usual thing: ridding the city of Gotham of the classic petty crime. But when a new criminal mastermind known as The Joker (the late Heath Ledger) comes into the picture, he must join forces with new District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman). The Joker quickly propels Gotham into anarchy and pushes Batman closer and closer to the line that differentiates a hero from a vigilante.

With a plot such as this, good acting is needed in order for it to be effective. And the actors in Dark Knight were right on spot. Christian Bale gave another superb performance as our masked hero and suave billionare. And as a bonus: even when fighting he managed to be as sexy as ever. Whoever the casting director was, I would like to give them a high five. Why? Because they hired Maggie Gyllenhaal and dropped Katie Holmes like a hot potato. Holmes was the only weakspot when it came to the acting in Batman Begins, but Maggie delivered a much better performance as Rachel Dawes in Dark Knight. She actually evoked emotion, an ability Katie Holmes has never quite grasped. Gary Oldman really stepped up his game in this movie as well. His character played a much larger role in this movie than it did in Batman Begins, and Oldman was certainly able to rise to this. Aaron Eckhart absolutely surprised me in his role as Harvey Dent. I previously considered him a mediocre actor, this having mostly to do with the fact that he had never really played any complex roles before this. Now I am trying not to give anything away, so all I will say is that Dark Knight truly showed exactly how versitile of an actor he is. Oh yes and Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman rock, there's not much more I need to add to that. They were meant to play Alfred and Lucius. And yes, I have saved Heath Ledger for last. Because he exceeded my expectations...and my expectations were freaking high!! For a while Heath Ledger was just a face. He was a good looking, charismatic guy that played simple roles. After Brokeback Mountain, we realized: woah this guy can act. And then He played the role of The Joker. A role like The Joker was a role unlike anything he had ever come close to doing and he completely blew the character out of the water, in a good way. The way he spoke, the way he moved, everything he did was so perfect for The Joker, even though most of it was stuff we had never before really seen in The Joker. You would think that the role of a psycotic and yet perfectly sane, mass murdering clown-faced anarchist would never be able to be portrayed in a real way, but Ledger did it. He convinced us that The Joker was a reality. The last role I would have ever thought him to be cast as ended up being his last role ever.

The lighting in Dark Knight was much different than it was in Batman Begins. Batman Begins was very dark lighting wise. Yes, there were definitely dark parts in Dark Knight (woah I said dark too many times), but there were more daylight scenes. Christopher Nolan (the director) was definitely going for some intense cinematography this time around as well. Every explosion/chase/fight had its own aesthetic quality to it, making it look truly like a piece of art. An example would be the scene that has constantly been shown in the trailers, the one where all of the police are standing in the street and suddenly disperse. The uniformity of the colors combined with the random directions and paths of their dispersal made a beautiful scene. It is the little cinematography tricks like these that separate an average action movie from an amazing one. And it goes without saying, but the special effects were amazing. Even at the end with a certain unexpected guest...I am being cryptic on purpose, this is a spoiler free review!

While Dark Knight may have been brighter lighting wise compared to its predecessor, it trumped it in grimness. There was more death and more despair, but isn't this what we love about Batman? Gotham is pushed farther than ever when The Joker takes control of its streets. Dent reminds us that "the night is darkest before the dawn", but for moments during Dark Knight, we are convinced that Gotham may never live to see the dawn. Batman is a symbol of hope though. So when he himself starts struggling with the line that separates hero from vigilante, we realize the full impact that The Joker has made on the troubled city. And yes, more people die. And their deaths galvanize anarchy in Gotham, proposing Batman with his greatest challenge yet.

Dark Knight was riveting. No joke. I can not even count the number of wise lines that were uttered by both Batman and The Joker alike. The story of Batman has always been able to capture the idea of good versus evil and the connection between the two in such a brilliant way. Endless dissertations have been written on the ideas and concepts that Batman embodies. Dark Knight lived up to the philosophies that are centered around Batman. It focused particulary on the thin line that separates good and evil. The Joker tries at great length to push the Batman past this line and force him to do what he has thus far refused to do: kill. Dark Knight showed that this is truly the only thing that separates Batman from The Joker, other than that, they are essentially the same.

Dark Knight was creepy and could certainly cause nightmares for me tonight (and it made me officially afraid of Joker cards), but it also managed to throw in those classic little one-liner jokes (real jokes, not Joker jokes) that we became familiar with in Batman Begins. Alfred and Lucius are the source of much of these funny bits, but The Joker also had his fair share of moments that made us laugh (to balance out the ones that make us shutter).

If a great movie is expected to draw out a full range of emotions from its viewers, then Dark Knight is definitely a great movie. You will laugh at The Joker's dark antics, you will be terrified at some of the more intense ones, you will be saddened by the state of Gotham and by loss, and you will be angered at the cruelty of some of The Joker's actions. The Dark Knight truly is an emotional rollercoaster, which is not always typical for a "superhero" type movie, but most of this comes from the character Batman himself. He is much more complex than your average superhero, which sometimes makes it harder for writers and the production team to do the character justice on the big screen, but Nolan delivered exactly what was needed to live up to this.

Ok I am getting tired, so I am just going to get to my point. Dark Knight was awesome. It was everything a superhero movie should be and more. It lived up to the DC comics story that it was born from and it is deifinitely worth seeing more than once. If you did not see the midnight showing, you missed out. There is always something different about the atmosphere and energy at a midnight showing. People in my theatre (woop! shout out to theatre 2!) were clapping throughout. But really, please get off facebook and make your way to the movie theatres if you have not already. Thank you, and goodnight (finally).

P.S. In my opinion should be at least nominated for the following Academy Awards: Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Makeup (Joker, duh).