I want to be able to give you some perspective on this as my favourite superhero character is Spiderman and he doesn’t appear in my top 50 for his movies but here we are with a Batman movie sitting neatly in the number 34 slot. This is called ‘The Dark Knight’ and is the filling in the sandwich of the Christian Bale three Batman movies. Released in 2008 this was directed by Christopher Nolan again and introduced (or reintroduced) the Joker character. Produced by Emma Thomas, Chris Roven, and Christopher Nolan. Christopher even had screenplay credit shared with Johnathan Nolan. Story credit shared by David S. Goyer and you guessed it Christopher Nolan and all based on the famous DC Cominc characters. This movie stars the returning Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Aaron Eckhart joined by Heath Ledger and Maggie Gyllenhaal who replaced Katie Holmes from the previous movie. Katie was going to return but decided on another movie instead (a movie that scraped over it’s a breakeven point and has a score of 22% on Rotten Tomatoes) Oh and while mentioning Rotten Tomatoes we have a new entry to the Tri-Critic Sync Challenge with this movie as we were close on and agreement with this. IMDb gave it an 8.4 out of 10 and Rotten Tomatoes were much closer to me with an 87% score. Meaning a 5-point spread and an entry into the challenge which for a top 50 film, I thought not possible. On the subject of numbers this had a budget of $185m and then went on to return $1.005b (yes that is Billion). Critically approved and one superhero movie that deserves all the credits it gets. Should I move onto the plot now?
During a bank robbery a gang of criminals kill each other to get the bigger share of the loot until the final man standing escapes with the money. That man is the Joker. Meanwhile DA Harvey Dent, Lieutenant Gordon and Batman form an alliance to rid Gotham of the organised crime. Bruce Wayne supporting the project believing that with Dent as prosecutor and protector he can give up the Batman. Lau the accountant of three of the largest crime gangs has taken most of the funds and hidden in Hong Kong for safety. During a video conference the Joker interrupts and tells them that Batman is not restricted by the Law and offers to kill him for them in exchange of 50% of the cash. Killing one of the leaders the Joker takes over the gang and they ultimately decide to accept the offer. Batman brings Lau back from Hong Kong to make him testify in against the mobs. The Joker then threatens to kill until the Batman reveals his true identity. The killings begin until Batman decides he will reveal who he is, but Dent beats him to it and Dent along with Rachel are taken into protective care. They never arrive. Batman erm interviews the Joker to reveal the location of the two and Joker explains that they are both in separate locations with explosives all around and set to go off. Not being able to be in both places at once Batman heads off to rescue Rachel while the commissioner heads for Dent. Who will get there first and will they save the day, well this and the following days you will have to go and watch for yourself?
This is a great Batman movie and one that I highly recommend. It has the Joker back and played to perfection by Heath Ledger in one of his final roles. Batman has a plethora of villains to do battle with yet the moist prominent of them all is the Joker. He is the direct opposite of Batman. He is the black to the white, the evil to the good, the chalk to the cheese. When a great Batman story comes along you wait for the joker to turn up to see how it truly compares with all the other versions of Batman out there. Well, this one blows them away with its story and acting. It has the shocks and clever humour to keep this ticking along his schemes always nearly come to bare but that’s why we need such superheroes of Batman’s ilk to keep us safe. The battle of Batman and Joker is played out in this movie to perfection, you will have to go and see this movie at some point as it must be done, and you will enjoy it whether you are a superhero fan or not. The darkness of both characters just makes this fantastic.
Next up is a horror movie that you may have been waiting for in my list as I’ve done all the rest in franchise.
Comments