The Dark Knight Part 2

Starring Christian Bale & Heath Ledger

I was gonna list all the people starring in this movie, then I remembered there are a ton of them so I decided against it.

As you can possibly see, I haven’t actually restored all the content here yet.  I debated about not posting anything new until that’s done, but I’m slower than I had anticipated, so I decided to post new stuff.  Although I will freely admit I do not have any “new” content right now, in the sense that I’m in the middle of two books and haven’t watched any new TV lately.  In fact, my TV is currently inaccessible, so I can’t watch anything anyway.  So instead, I remembered that I never gave a full review to The Dark Knight due to the timing when I saw it, so I bring you my review now.

I loved this movie, and still do, otherwise why would I have seen it a couple dozen times this month as it’s been on HBO.  I’m a huge fan of Batman in general, he’s my favorite super hero (the Slayer aside, of course),  so I am naturally prone to watching and liking movies about him.  And Christian Bale is super hot, so that doesn’t hurt either.

The first thing that struck me about this movie is that I so wish they had cast Maggie Gyllenhaal from the start.  I think she did a much better job as Rachel, and I think Maggie is more versatile than Katie Holmes.  I just found her more charming, more likeable, and that made it a lot harder to watch her die.

Speaking of her death, I knew it was going to happen as soon as they said only one of either her or Harvey would live.  This is because, as a Batman fan, I watched all the other Batman movies…you know, the ones that got progressively worse as time went on.  So I knew that Harvey Dent went on to be Two Face, and that if someone was going to die it wouldn’t be him.

I kind of like that Christopher Nolan is making decisions based on the assumption that people don’t know anything about Batman in general.  Otherwise, he wouldn’t have made a scenario where you might think Harvey Dent would die, and I like that.  I also really loved the makeup job on Two Face, much scarier than the Tommy Lee Jones version in the other franchise.

I know there are a lot of people loyal to the Jack Nicholsen Joker, and while he did a fine job, I think there is absolutely no comparison to the Heath Ledger version.  I truly felt that Heath was unrecognizable, and genuinely had a fantastic performance.  And since I’ve never been super into him, I feel like I say that without any bias from his death.

As is the case with Batman Begins, I love the dark, honest portrayal of Gotham and Batman in general.  It’s a scary, dangerous place, and is presented as such in these movies.  I can’t wait to see what they do with any subsequent movies they make!

My Rating: 4.5/5

See this movie if: You like Batman, comic books, or action movies.  Although it’s a little long, it’s worth it.

Six Degrees of Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Morgan Freeman was in Million Dollar Baby with Hillary Swank
Hillary Swank was in Buffy the Vampire Slayer the movie by Joss Whedon
Joss Whedon created the TV show after the movie