The Dark Knight

We interrupt my string of geeky tech posts for this special brief movie summary.

Batman: The Dark Knight picks up shortly after Batman Begins left off... Gotham is getting cleaned up, and Batman is getting some respect from the community and at least some parts of the city government. The Joker is the main villain here (though Scarecrow makes a brief appearance just to get him out of the way, and a new villain appears 2/3 through the movie). The Joker makes his mark on the city pretty quickly, getting the best of even the city's toughest criminals. He has a way of knowing what people are going to do beforehand, and takes advantage of that, setting up traps, knowing where people are going to be ahead of time. He's also great at manipulating people mentally, able to turn people into something they never intended to be. Rachel is now dating the new District Attorney, Harvey Dent, and things appear to be serious, much to the dismay of Bruce Wayne. Bruce is struggling with his role as Batman, not only despite, but also because of his acceptance in the public eye.

I won't spoil any of the plot for those who intend to see it but haven't yet. Suffice it to say that I liked it, but didn't love it.

Heath Ledger did an absolutely amazing job as the Joker, it's too bad it's his last role. The movie definitely continues in the vein of Batman Begins, but lives up to its name with an overall darker tone. The story is good, but not excellent. There are a few "did they really need to do this?" and "that doesn't really make sense" moments; more-so than its predecessor. The special effects are excellent for the most part, especially the effects on Harvey Dent's character at the end (I won't spoil it but you'll know what I'm talking about when you see it).

It could have had one or two less action sequences would have been a better movie for it; as-is I was getting a little anxious for things to get wrapped up toward the end. It's one of those "well, things could be wrapped up right now if we wanted to... but we need to throw in another 30 minutes of story because it's a big budget picture" kinds of things. (This is one of my pet peeves of Hollywood; I wish they'd just tell the story without too many extraneous scenes or plot points.)

Probably not the best movie to come out this summer, yet certainly one with some of the highest expectations. On my new official "Doug's movie rating scale" I give it somewhere between a "See it at a matinee" or "Wait for the dollar theater" rating.

P.S. I enjoy movie trailers as much as anyone, but is 25 minutes getting to be too much?