Posted on July 20, 2008

Thoughts on “The Dark Knight”

Thoughts after seeing it:  Excellent.  Terrific movie (though not the #1 best movie of all time, as it currently sits on IMDB).  The Joker was perfect.  Different, but fantastically scary in his own way, and easily now in that top pantheon of movie villains along with Hannibal Lecter and Darth Vader.  My favorite moment was probably the pencil trick, which was simply awesome, shocking, and wonderfully establishing-of-character.  I loved that they played up the we-need-each-other angle of the Joker/Batman relationship.

Only negatives were, first, Batman just doesn’t fit as well into the environment as the villains.  He looks like a movie superhero instead of a realistic part of the environment.  I don’t know if there’s any way to fix that in live action.  Maybe Batman can only ever achieve total verisimilitude when rendered by pencil and ink.  Second, Nolan still seems to want to keep Bruce Wayne grumpy but essentially sane.  He’s not.  He’s a rich kid who witnessed his family’s murder up close and messy and now he dresses up and fights crime.  He’s at least as nuts as all the guys he cases.  Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum nails this, and I missed seeing it in the movie.

Still, is was a great flick and firmly the best Batman on film.