I’m joined again by The Popcorn Prince, who’s been watching movies for almost as long as I have. He’s a big Batman fan, so I’m pleased to have him by my side once more. For today’s Armrest Review, we’ll be watching The Dark Knight, the middle – and perhaps greatest – installment in The Dark Knight Trilogy.
Cinema King: First of all, welcome back to The Popcorn Prince. I couldn’t be more excited to go through The Dark Knight with you.
Popcorn Prince: Thanks, King. I’m pumped as well, especially after how much fun we had last time.
CK: Are you making fun of me?
PoP: Absolutely not! I had a blast, and even though I’ve seen this one dozens of times I’m still as excited as I was the first time I saw it.
CK: Motion seconded. I saw this eight times in theaters and maybe fifty more on DVD and cable, but I still can’t wait for it to start. It’s stuck with me almost verbatim – the sign of a truly great movie – but I’ll refrain from doing the dialog along with the movie. I’ve done it before.
PoP: But is The Dark Knight the greatest? You know we’re going to have to come back to whether it’s your favorite of all time.
CK: Hush, it’s starting. I love that Nolan wastes no time here and throughout the movie – there’s no build-up montage, just pure blood-pumping action and compelling drama from here on out.
PoP: This bank robbery might be the best beginning of a movie ever. It introduces what kind of an enemy Batman’s going to face, with genius clown imagery and an intricate plan that feels like a warm-up to the heist film that is Inception.
CK: Good observation! I’ve never made that connection, but it’s as tightly plotted and of course everything goes to hell.
PoP: I like that it’s the same bank manager from Heat.
CK: There are a lot of similarities with Heat, actually, but The Dark Knight is more original than slave to an homage. Every time I watch this movie, I catch something new – this time it’s the editing, how quickly the camera cuts around to build up tension.
PoP: Come on, you could put Hans Zimmer’s score over anything and feel tense.
CK: The Joker theme is fantastic, and it beats the waltz Danny Elfman wrote for Nicholson’s Joker. Ledger stands unmasked as The Joker, and it’s a brilliant introduction to one of the greatest movie characters of the last ten years.
PoP: We should probably just get it out of the way now, but we’re both in love with this portrayal, right?
CK: An Oscar well-deserved. And after the bank montage we meet Batman – it’s an interesting choice to begin with the villain and not the hero. Why do you think that is?
PoP: Because The Joker’s a way more interesting character?
CK: There’s got to be more to it. I think Nolan has his openers set up the stakes – in Begins, we see Bruce falling, and the whole movie is about learning how to get back up; here, it’s the new face of crime in Gotham City. You can’t start with this Scarecrow bust, because Scarecrow is very much “old crime.”
PoP: Yeah, he’s selling drugs in a parking garage. Small potatoes. Plus he’s still kind of a Falcone thug. How do you think Dark Knight Rises will begin, then?
CK: I’m betting it’s with Gordon mourning in some capacity. The whole movie is going to be about Batman “rising,” so we have to see how far he’s fallen first.
PoP: Nah, I’m betting it’s going to be that airplane heist they showed on IMAX at Christmas.
CK: Isn’t that too similar to introducing The Joker with a bank heist? Nolan’s no slouch; I’m sure he’ll surprise us anyway.
PoP: Can we talk about how cool it is that Batman has to fight Bat-fakes? Batman is such a badass destroying that one guy’s gun.
CK: It sets up this really interesting angle of Batman having to fight good guys to do the right thing. He’ll fight cops later, and by the end we see how much of a “bad guy” Batman has to become to be a hero. But it’s not like Scarecrow puts up much of a threat; they’ve been trying to reinvent Scarecrow in the comics now, but I still like this idea of Scarecrow as this medical-jargon drug pusher who’s addicted to his own smack.
PoP: I really hope we see him in the third movie, because Cillian Murphy has the craziest eyes ever. Speaking of crazy, has the Bat-voice gotten more gravelly?
CK: Sounds that way, but his Batcave is in an underground bunker beneath a shipping yard; he doesn’t have the humidifying effects of the Batcave’s waterfall system anymore.
PoP: I can never tell if you’re joking or if you’re hitting me with some uber-obscure comic book factoid.
CK: Hey, look – Maggie Gyllenhaal as the new Rachel.
PoP: A marked improvement. She’s less conventionally attractive, but she can read a line, and I actually feel bad when she – spoiler – bites the big one.
CK: I concur, and I think she pulls off the repartee with Aaron Eckhart really well. With the introduction of Harvey Dent, here’s another of the film’s many strengths – how efficiently Nolan introduces all the characters in this movie.
PoP: Yeah, it’s fifteen minutes into the movie, and we’ve already met all the main characters – except Morgan Freeman – and we know what they’re after.
CK: This movie is so economical that there’s not one wasted scene. Sometimes I forget that this is a sequel because it works so well as a stand-alone film.
PoP: Except for the ending.
CK: We’re getting ahead of ourselves, but yeah, sort of. This film just works on so many levels. Take a look at this scene between Harvey Dent and Gordon; we know how these two men are going after the same thing but with different methods, and it sets up a major plot turn with what seems like a joke.
PoP: Huh?
CK: Harvey’s “other name.”
PoP: Ohhh. I never caught that!
CK: Wake up, man. You and Bruce are both asleep at the table.
PoP: Is Bruce this much of a futz in the comics?
CK: Usually he’s a bit more business savvy, but I like the idea that Bruce Wayne is the real mask, something that comes across clear as day in the scene where he meets Harvey. He knows that Harvey is exactly the kind of hero that Gotham needs, but he can’t reveal it outright so he throws him a fundraiser to support him as best he can without spoiling his secret.
PoP: He’s testing him, right?
CK: Oh, definitely. He’s also trying to figure out, I think, what Rachel’s connection is, and that little hand-holding breaks his heart. Bale is a master; thank God he has an Oscar too.
PoP: And speaking of Oscar, here’s the big “pencil trick” scene. Words can’t describe seeing this with a full crowd on opening day; Ledger was so surprising, so into his performance that we couldn’t help but feel like we were just along for the ride.
CK: You never get a handle on the character, which helps us get the sense, like Batman, that this is an utterly unpredictable foe. And I like that he’s contrasted with Scarecrow and Maroni, who are kind of just stock villains who behave exactly like you would expect, right down to the Jersey accents.
PoP: Hey, I like Eric Roberts.
CK: Me too! Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing about this movie that I don’t like, but Joker is that “better class of criminal” that he wants to see take over the city. He’s even a better class of Joker, because Nicholson and Hamill and Romero are nothing like this Joker, but it fits in a weird way with what we expect a Joker to be.
PoP: He makes you laugh, but in a really sleazy uncomfortable way. Like, he’s making jokes and has these weird tics, but he’s killing people and has a major psychotic personality disorder.
CK: That’s good, because Paul Dini (who wrote all the best episodes of The Animated Series) said that Joker should make you laugh uncomfortably.
PoP: Here’s the rooftop scene where Dent finally meets Batman.
CK: There’s so much to love here: Gordon running up the stairs, gun drawn and out of breath, Harvey’s complete confidence, and Batman standing there like, “You couldn’t figure this out before I got here?”
PoP: Haha, he totally has that impatient posture like he’s just waiting to say something.
CK: I think the armor’s just really heavy, something Morgan Freeman is about to fix. And the reference to cats is clever, but I’m curious how it’ll hold up.
PoP: Yeah, I can see Catwoman just slicing through him and Batman saying, “Dammit, Lucius, you said it’d do fine against cats.”
CK: I’m buying you lunch if that happens.
Stay tuned for Part Two of our Armrest Review of The Dark Knight, in just a few short hours!
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