A Seat In The Wings – I believe in Harvey Dent: A “The Dark Knight” Movie Review

I just got back from the midnight showing of “The Dark Knight”. I’m glad I went to the midnight showing because that gives me an edge over a lot of the other bloggers out there to do a movie review on one of the biggest and most anticipated summer blockbusters first, although I didn’t get much of an edge seeing as I had to go out of my way on the way home to get White Castle and that I already had a half hour drive ahead of me, and it really doesn’t help that I Australia and New Zealand are a day ahead of me either so now I’m working against the clock and on borrowed time to get this out. With that said I’m gonig to type up the review and publish it now and work on the images for my rating system immediately after.

I picked that movie poster for this review because ever since I saw the big cardboard display of that poster at the theatre I go to I’ve wanted to see this movie. Its very inspiring in a sense. I’m also a sucker for anything Batman related. Ever since I was a small child my two favorite super heroes were always Batman and Darkwing Duck. It used to be that I couldn’t wait for three o’clock to roll around or to get off the school bus and rush into the living room to watch “Batman: The Animated Series”. I got to have little thirty minute adventures every day after school. As a child I had almost every single Batman toy, and every Darkwing Duck toy that there was to have.

The Girlfriend Lady, myself, and a friend of ours left my home at six PM to go and get tickets and even then we had to wait in line. I had my fingers crossed becasue one of the three theatres showing the movie was already sold out. We then stuck around Metropolis in Plainfeild for another six hours just to make sure we didn’t miss a thing. We drove around for a while seeing as everything in the mall closed around nine. We got back to the theatre at ten-thirty and hung around outside for about a half hour, and then tried to get into the theatre at eleven. All three theatres showing “The Dark Knight” were full, with the exception of two seats next to me. The places was filling up early. And it was then that I knew this was going to be great, because all these people who filled the seats weren’t going to wait around all night for a midnight showing for something that was gong to flop. But then again there was hype for months before this movie even got a TV spot, and even the most diligent fan could only find a vague picture of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker online. But hype can be a good thing for a movie, even months before its released, that is if its a good movie.

When I was trying to get into the theatre when  I realize that I’m not the only one excited about this premiere, now granted that I didn’t dress up there were plenty of people who did, I just so happened to snap a picture of two such gentlemen. The fact that people are actually doing this shows that the creators are doing the right thing, people who believe in a franchise, or their favorite comic book character, so much that they’re willing to dress up for the premiere event. That takes balls, I wouldn’t do something like that simply because I’d be too concerned of making a fool out of myself. But that’s saying something about you. It’s saying, “I believe in this film and what it has to say.”, “I believe in these actors and the people who made this movie.”. Just like I’m saying, “I believe in Harvey Dent”

I want to start off by saying I really like the direction that those behind this film are taking with the entire Batman universe. I like how Gotham and its villains, and even its hero are a lot darker, and grittier than previously depicted. Its more like they’re going for realism, instead of being all cartoonish. Because I know I’m not the only one who thought that a Bat suit with nipples and a purple faced Two-Face was a train wreck of an idea. I like the fact that the end of “Batman Begins” set you up for the plot of “The Dark Knight” and was excited to see a remake of the original Batman movie, but was even more surprised to find that it wasn’t a remake, but a retelling. I really enjoyed the beginning of the movie of how it appeared that a bunch of The Jokers hired goons are doing a bank heist and they’re talking amongst themselves while doing their respective tasks for the heist, “I don’t know anything about this guy that hired us.” One guy says to the other, “I hear he wears clown makeup.” he says back. I was slightly surprised at how the heist ended. I won’t ruin it here for you because its just far too early for spoilers. In a few weeks maybe, but not after the midnight showing.

The movie was a little hard to follow at first, but it could have been that I wasn’t hearing all of the dialogue over laughter from a packed house. I think that after the heist the movie took off a little slow. I did enjoy this new portrayal of The Joker. It doesn’t follow the comic book at all as far as his origins are concerned. He didn’t fall into a vat of chemicals and become transformed. The permanent smile on his face is from scars of unknown origin (he tells two different stories of how he got them) and he just wears clown makeup and dyes his hair green for kicks. He doesn’t have a grudge against Batman just like every villain from the comic book did. He just wants to kill The Batman for fun, just because he can. Personally I think that makes for an even creepier and twisted character and he’s played quite well. The movie headed in a different direction than I thought it would. It wasn’t about Batman and The Joker so much as it was about the fall of Gotham City’s golden boy Harvey Dent. With some crafty trans-continental kidnapping from Batman, Harvey Dent is able to single handedly convict half of Gotham City’s criminals over night.

This however made him a target to the mobsters left on the street, and everyone else who was being paid off by the mafia, and with their pockets that much lighter, it made for some pretty pissed off crooked cops. And after Harvey Dent’s accident, anybody who’s seen the cartoon or read the comics knows what I mean, he becomes a completely different person. Angry at Batman and Gordon for saving him instead of Ms. Dawes. Angry at The Joker and all the crooked Gotham cops that had their hands in her death. He becomes conflicted, and as absolute power corrupts absolutely he takes the law he swore to uphold into his own hands for his revenge. And you can see his descent into madness as the duality of his character is well displayed on his face due to some very talented CGI work. And as he made his own luck as the district attorney of Gotham he leaves the fate of his victims to chance with his double sided coin of justice.

I found certain parts of the movie predictable, well not so much predictable as that I’m quite skilled at catching on early to plots of films. But it did take somewhat of a different direction than I’d expected. I assumed that the movie would end shortly after the death of Rachel Dawes and the disfigurement of Harvey Dent and leave what happened for the next installment. But it played all out, its almost like two movies at once, and the ending was very good. And it just goes to show that even the most upstanding citizen can be made just as sinister as The Joker after just a few horrible turns of events. Everyone believed in Harvey Dent, but in the end Harvey Dent didn’t believe in himself.

This movie was three hours long. Its perfect for all the die hard Batman fans, but if you’re not then it would be better if you waited for the DVD so that you could press pause every now and again for a bathroom break. Some parts of the movie were predictable, and there were some very good action sequences as well as quite a few funny parts of the film. Come on, it stars The Joker there’s bound to be plenty of laughs.

I give this movie an 8.5.5. I give it an 8 simply because its not a 10 unless you’re a hardcore Batman fan like I am. An explanation of how my ratings work is quite simple, I rate it with three categories: what I thought of the movie, what you should do if you go see it, and what you should do when it comes out on DVD in that order. (I’m sorry the following images are of horrible quality but all I have to work with now is MS Paint, I will try to improve the quality of these images in the future.)

You can stop reading this review at this point or you can continue on to read my opinions on the trailers that were shown before the movie.

The Trailers shown before “The Dark Knight”

Tropic Thunder

This looks like it will be the one of the great action comedies of this Summer. Starring Jack Black and Ben Stiller you know that you’ll be in for some good laughs. All though I imagine with all the hype that its getting that this moment it will fall short of expectations simply because it is, after all, an action comedy. The action will be great, but judging by the actors starring in it some of the comedy lines will either be forced, cheesy, or flat out awkward. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see until it comes out.

The Spirit

I don’t know much about this film. This is the first time  I’ve heard about it. Its not set to come out until Christmas of this year but it looks like it will be a great action flick, its based on a graphic novel and it seems that Frank Miller got his hands on it while it was being made into a film, I’m not entirely sure if its his graphic novel seeing as this is the first time I’ve heard of it. But it looks like it will be great. The cinematography looks like it will be done in the same style as that of Sin City so I’m waiting on baited breath.

The Watchmen

Another graphic novel turned movie. From what I’ve heard there has been a lot of hype and very little information about this one. But as far as I can tell it looks like a great film, and if you’re a fan of the comic you’re in for a treat on this one.

Bolt

Its a Disney CGI movie about a dog that plays a super dog on a TV show who tries to rescue the girl who plays his owner from what he thinks is Danger because he thinks that what happens on his show is really happening. It looks good as far as a kid movie goes and I’d pay money to so see it. But we’ll see what happens when it comes out. I mean its sure to be better than the movie Disney is making about those damn Chihuahua’s.

Terminator Salvation

Or at least I think that’s the title. This one wont be coming out until Summer 2009. That’s right, another Terminator movie. My first thought was, “Another one, really?” I thought that three was enough seeing as every action movie goes for the trilogy. But as the trailer went on it looked decent. Lets hope its a good movie and not just Hollywood trying to squeeze more money out of a seemingly retired one trick pony.

The Mummy: Tomb of The Dragon Emperor

The third Mummy movie, because like I said every good action movie goes for the trilogy. And it looks like it will be a great movie. I enjoyed Brendan Frasier’s work in both Mummy movies and have my fingers crossed for this one to be good too. Because in my experience most third installments of action films usually fall short. Lets hope this one comes together good and they’re not using Jet Li as a gimmick like they used The Rock in Mummy 2.