Choices, choices.
That just about sums the movie up. The choices that we have to make. Suppose we had a choice between two people - one of them lives and the other dies. TDK takes this scenario and plays it over and over again.
In Batman Forever, our protagonist had to make that "choice". Ah, but we knew that no one was going to die anyway, except maybe the bad guys. The Dark Knight, however, is much darker. A few people will die. It's supposed to be a "dark" movie after all.
This dark movie as it so happens is the best superhero/comic book movie ever made (Spiderman 2, in my opinion, follows very closely behind). But let's hope - for the sake of entertainment -it gets overtaken eventually. Most of the drama comes from the suspense and as such suspense here constitutes this movie's "drama". Maggie Gyllenhaal, for example, may have more acting chops than her predecessor but even so, she is woefully underutilized.
And ah yes, The Joker. Ledger certainly makes this his memorable role (not that there will be anymore more memorable ones). An Oscar? Well, the Academy seems to like people who create a whole new character. Think Whitaker with Idi Amin and, more recently, Day-Lewis with Daniel Planview. We'll see.
As it so happens this movie is nowhere near as flashy as Spiderman or Superman. Yes, we have the clumsy punching and the usual car crashes, but everyone here are ordinary humans after all - and the whole movie bangs on that fact again and again. That is, indeed, a breath of fresh air. Heroes become villains and there is not always a happy ending.
(Spoiler ahead along with morality discussion; highlight with mouse to view)
We are then left with the impression, at the end, that Harvey Dent a.k.a. Two Face needs to be the light for the people of Gotham no matter if he killed a few people in his rage.
Batman makes the choice of being the fall guy for someone who did wrong in order that people would not become disillusioned. Here then is the irony. Most would say that Batman did the right thing, in covering up someone's guilt for the greater good. But if choices define us (the previous movie's tagline) then, well, our Dark Knight has chosen to defend evil. So what does that make him? Perhaps that is what the writers may be hinting at, or perhaps they missed that.
Either way, in the end, no one is spotless.
That just about sums the movie up. The choices that we have to make. Suppose we had a choice between two people - one of them lives and the other dies. TDK takes this scenario and plays it over and over again.
In Batman Forever, our protagonist had to make that "choice". Ah, but we knew that no one was going to die anyway, except maybe the bad guys. The Dark Knight, however, is much darker. A few people will die. It's supposed to be a "dark" movie after all.
This dark movie as it so happens is the best superhero/comic book movie ever made (Spiderman 2, in my opinion, follows very closely behind). But let's hope - for the sake of entertainment -it gets overtaken eventually. Most of the drama comes from the suspense and as such suspense here constitutes this movie's "drama". Maggie Gyllenhaal, for example, may have more acting chops than her predecessor but even so, she is woefully underutilized.
And ah yes, The Joker. Ledger certainly makes this his memorable role (not that there will be anymore more memorable ones). An Oscar? Well, the Academy seems to like people who create a whole new character. Think Whitaker with Idi Amin and, more recently, Day-Lewis with Daniel Planview. We'll see.
As it so happens this movie is nowhere near as flashy as Spiderman or Superman. Yes, we have the clumsy punching and the usual car crashes, but everyone here are ordinary humans after all - and the whole movie bangs on that fact again and again. That is, indeed, a breath of fresh air. Heroes become villains and there is not always a happy ending.
(Spoiler ahead along with morality discussion; highlight with mouse to view)
We are then left with the impression, at the end, that Harvey Dent a.k.a. Two Face needs to be the light for the people of Gotham no matter if he killed a few people in his rage.
Batman makes the choice of being the fall guy for someone who did wrong in order that people would not become disillusioned. Here then is the irony. Most would say that Batman did the right thing, in covering up someone's guilt for the greater good. But if choices define us (the previous movie's tagline) then, well, our Dark Knight has chosen to defend evil. So what does that make him? Perhaps that is what the writers may be hinting at, or perhaps they missed that.
Either way, in the end, no one is spotless.
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