Director – Christopher Nolan – 2008 – US – Cert. 12a – 152m
*****
If you see The Dark Knight in an ordinary cinema rather than IMAX 70mm, you haven’t seen it at all – review originally published in Third Way in 2008.
The Caped Crusader is as significant a figure in the media landscape as he is on the Gotham City skyline. Ever since revisionist graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns (1986) suggested that the methods of a so-called hero who went around beating up villains might in fact be less than heroic, the complexity of the character has become increasingly apparent. In print, the high point has been the Red Rain trilogy (1991-98), which reinvented the character as a vampire! Hollywood has jumped on the bandwagon in the last two decades with two quirky Tim Burton movies, two vacuous, family-friendly Joel Schumacher sequels and two darker Christopher Nolan outings (Batman Begins and this one).
Nolan’s entries have focused on Batman / Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) rather than simply on Batman, whose masked vigilante is less a fabrication than his everyday millionaire playboy alter-ego. Bruce is trapped between wanting to protect the city from criminals and the dubious methods he employs to do so as Batman.… Read the rest