THE DARK KNIGHT AND THE TRILOGY BELT

There’s a lot of hype and trepidation about The Dark Knight Rises as to whether or not it will conclude the trilogy with a bang or a whimper. If he does, Nolan will be the first director in 50 years to create a trilogy that tops itself with each entry. Such a feat is akin to a world heavyweight championship of film, to the winner goes the trilogy belt (explained more fully in part one of this series).

Nolan has more than history working against him, he also has the 2nd installment of his trilogy, The Dark Knight,which whatever its flaws is certainly one of the most unique and relentlessly entertaining blockbusters of late.

It’s been a year since Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) took up the mantle of Batman and hit the streets of Gotham to start a war on crime. In his crusade he has joined forces with Lieutenant Gordon (Gary Oldman) and the newly elected DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckheart) who's currently dating Bruce's love interest Rachel (now played by Maggie Gyllenhaal). Batman and co. have had some solid results. Together they’ve managed to deprive the Gotham mob of its accountant and along with him go all their finances, but there’s a new complication in the form of the Joker (Heath Leger), a punk rock, psychotic super crook bent on nothing less than the obliteration of Gotham’s soul.

Complication is the key word of Dark Knight. The film is a relentless series of horrors. The highly episodic plot never slows down. A great villain exists to put the hero through the ringer, Nolan understands this and treats the film like a Shock & Awe campaign, never letting the audience get comfortable. Many films use a sort of ticking time-bomb to accelerate the 3rd act. This film seems to have them every five minutes. Joker issues an ultimatum that people will die every day Batman doesn’t reveal his identity. Later, two main characters are kidnaped and Batman must choose who to save. Joker orders the city to kill a man in an hour or he blows up a hospital, etc. This tactic makes the film a wonderfully nerve racking experience. Every time you think Joker has run out of evil schemes, he pulls something even more diabolical out of his hat. The fact that the film doesn't collapse by the end or run out of juice is a huge testament to how well much of this film works.

What doesn’t always work is the drama. Dark Knight is ultimately supposed to be a tragic film about men who pin all their hopes on an all too human savior. This is all very thoroughly explained to us in the films worst scene where Bruce, Rachel and Dent sit around a table an talk to the audience about the films themes. It’s a shame that a film with such an ingenious structure has to resort to such condescending exposition. Also the tragic parts are underwritten. Perhaps I’m too familiar with the comics to be surprised about what happens to Harvey Dent, but I still should have felt something. It’s as if the characters invest more in Dent than the film is able to. It’s not as if the film doesn’t have time, Dent is on screen long enough, but that thread only works on an intellectual level and not necessarily an emotional one.

Nolan’s technical skills took a measurable step up with this film. He starts to play with sound in interesting ways. Being an action film, there are naturally a lot of loud bangs, but Nolan contrasts this by dialing back at times to the point that there are snippets of complete silence that really force us to look more fully at the image. Those images are better than ever, he and his cinematographer Wally Pfister have sharpened their visuals a lot for this film. The last film made a huge jump towards "realism" but still had a foot in the overly designed world of the old Batman films (the trains, the backlots). Dark Knight makes more extensive use of location shooting (mostly using Chicago as Gotham) and it really works like gangbusters.

Nolan’s ability to conceive and shoot action sequences has improved measurably. There are some memorable show stoppers here. The opening bank heist and the extraction of the mob accountant from Hong Kong are particular standouts. But while Nolan’s ability to edit these scenes aren’t always up to snuff (this video goes into excruciating detail as to why), they’re still extremely effective on a visceral level. The fist fights are better photographed this time out. The camera has been pulled back and you can actually see Batman hitting people this time. That said, there are still some clunkers. Late in the film there’s a gimmick involving sonar vision. Now there are some gadgets in these films that are totally plausible (sky hook), and some stuff that it’s better not to think to hard about. Of the later group, Batman’s sonar vision strains credibility the most. Worst of all it’s an ugly, disorienting gimmick that really detracts from the enjoyment of the film.

This whole scene is a headache.

Now whereas Batman Begins was an example of the superhero formula done about as well as it can be done (despite some flaws). The Dark Knight is all about changing perceptions of the genre. Dark Knight has very little to do with the standard superhero movie. It’s much more like a crime film that happens to have a superhero in it. It’s clear that it’s not Iron Man but film’s like Micheal Mann’s Heat that are the film’s closest cousin. Now in comparison to Heat it doesn’t quite measure up, but it’s a relatively fair fight most of the time.

One of the things evening out the playing field is Heath Leger as Joker. It's been 4 years since Dark Knight came out so there's nothing really left to say about the performance other than wowie wow wow! It's a very twitchy performance but his intense, calculating gaze keeps him down to earth. Also it's just an interesting character, he isn't evil just for the sake of it, he's an armchair shrink out to prove his theories of human existence and shake up the established order. Most of all he wants to expose Batman as a fraud. The thing is, Joker is kinda right. As the film goes on, Batman seems more and more willing to cross lines to stop Joker. Like Dirty Harry, he tortures suspects, breaks legs, even wire-taps the entire city and barely stops for a second to consider it. Like in the last film, he also has to decide if he's going to go all the way and become a murderer. (Spoilers for that 1 person who still hasn't seen this movie) First, he throws Joker off the side of a building but saves him. This is an improvement over his behavior in the first film where he left Ra's Al Ghul to an almost certain death. Perhaps he felt that he would have been more directly responsible for Jokers death seeing that it was him who personally threw him. Or perhaps Nolan didn't want to reenact the ending of Burton's '89 film too closely. Later, after the Joker has been apprehended, Batman learns that Dent has gone insane and has kidnapped Gordon's family. In that scene Batman finally, explicitly, directly kills someone. We can argue that it was justified, but again, the point is that Batman breaks his most important rule and he'll have more trouble rationalizing it this time, and even though Batman finds a way to salvage some dignity, it's very clear that Joker has essentially won. Batman gets torn down, he breaks his rules, loses his objectivity and discipline and even worse his legacy as a force for good is ruined. Batman finds a way to salvage a win, but it feels like a hollow one. (end spoilers)

The dramatic elements of Dark Knight are sometimes hit and miss, but Nolan still manages to tell an amazingly entertaining yarn. Like Begins, it feels a little essayish at times but is emencely entertaining with some interesting moral quandaries. It's a superior sequel that elevates the genre. 2008 was an important year for the comic book movies, Dark Knight and Hellboy II ushered the super-hero genre into more ambitious, more adult territory. It's a shame that the rest of the industry hasn't followed suit.

Grade: A-

Entries in this series:

Intro /Batman Begins

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight Rises

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