A further welcome back for the final part of our Armrest Review of The Dark Knight, the middle entry in Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight Trilogy." As before, I’m joined 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 for the next installment of this series.
Cinema King: We’re starting our third post of the day with the interrogation room scene. If the car chase is the best action piece in the film, this is the scene with the best acting.
Popcorn Prince: There’s no doubt that this is why Heath Ledger won the Oscar. He’s awesome throughout, of course, but everything he does in this scene is so perfectly in character. I could watch three hours of these two in a room together.
CK: Somewhere there’s gotta be dailies or outtakes of Ledger just riffing and ad-libbing in character.
PoP: I thought Nolan said he used everything he had, that he wasn’t holding anything back.
CK: I’ve finally reached the point where I’m not holding out for a cameo from archive footage of Ledger, because I can always go back to this scene.
PoP: What about this double bait-and-switch? Does he have a master plan here, or is Joker just screwing with Batman?
CK: I think both, actually. He’s designed a trap where either way the good guys lose. Either Batman loses his lady love or the city loses its best defender; either way Joker escapes with Lau.
PoP: And blows up the police station while totally screwing with that one cop’s head in the process.
CK: But Nolan does the exact same thing to us. We’re so focused on how Joker is manipulating the cops at the station – and by the hilarious line about the phone call – that we don’t suspect that Batman’s walking into a trap. It’s a trick he accomplishes with the lighting, too; notice Harvey’s building has bad exterior lighting, like the interior of Rachel’s location.
PoP: Oh my God, you’re absolutely right. He fooled me without my knowing it. And the way that music cuts out is just a kick in the gut. I didn’t realize how badly I wanted Batman to succeed until I saw Rachel die.
CK: It’s like the line from Following: “Show them what they have by taking it away.”
PoP: Okay, Mister Comic Book Guy – how upset are you that they changed Two-Face’s origin? It’s acid in the comics, right?
CK: Right, Maroni actually throws acid on Harvey’s face in open court, so I assumed that’s where the movie was going with his character. But to be honest, I didn’t even process that until after I saw it the first time. Again, it’s a change that fits really well with the world Nolan has built, and he links it so elegantly with Two-Face’s coin. It works too well for me to be upset.
PoP: I kind of forgot that Reese comes back into the picture. Guy’s such a jerk.
CK: One more example that proves Nolan knows what he’s doing – there’s nothing wasted in this movie. Almost every line pays off later in the film, and every scene builds a character or a plot thread in some meaningful way so that the ending feels organic.
PoP: You’re totally right. Since you mentioned it, I had never noticed before this viewing how many times we see Gordon with his son, but it pays off when Two-Face has to figure out who Gordon loves the most. We get there first because we’ve seen them together.
CK: Ignoring the fact that, in the comics, Jim Jr. becomes this sick psychopathic killer who disfigures his own mother and dismembers his grade school bully.
PoP: Whoa, really?
CK: Yeah. Scott Snyder’s The Black Mirror. Check it out.
PoP: I know I just said I didn’t like Reese, but the guy who plays him does such a great job with that defecating-in-his-pants look when he realizes Joker just asked the whole city to kill him.
CK: How eloquently put – that’s exactly the look I was thinking, just not as gracefully put.
PoP: I didn’t think we could swear on this site.
CK: We can, but I try not to. Same reason Nolan didn’t go for an R-rating on this movie – it’s the kind of film he wanted to see as a kid. This is the kind of blog I would want to read.
PoP: That’s a heck of a transition.
CK: It’s not the blog we deserve, but the one—
PoP: Got it. Oh hey, Nurse Joker.
CK: Creepy disguise, or creepiest disguise?
PoP: I’m actually surprised there weren’t more Halloween costumes like this. I totally would have gone as Nurse Joker.
CK: I don’t know that anyone could have done as fine a job with it. And the weird thing is, I actually believed him for a second when he said he didn’t have plans.
PoP: But that’s what Joker does. We had the same reaction with his stories about the scars. It sounds good until you actually think about it for a second, but Harvey’s not thinking. Like the song says, “They barbecued his face / and he lost his lady.”
CK: Poor guy is so not in a state to deal with dense political philosophy.
PoP: Now, there’s two moments I know you loved: Bruce saves the car without blowing his cover, and Joker using the hand sanitizer.
CK: The movie is so full of these little moments, like the detonation delay where Joker does this little dance like he’s an impatient person in a silent film, just huffing and overplaying the trigger. This movie might be my favorite just on the strength of having something fantastic, even if it’s a small thing, in every scene.
PoP: Two-Face’s big debut. At this point I remember being worried that the film was starting to overfill itself. I couldn’t see a way that this wouldn’t carry over into a sequel.
CK: Honestly, I was a little surprised Nolan even went there. I figured Harvey Dent was going to be built up and then turned into Two-Face for the third film, but I knew the “You either die a hero” line was going to come back up.
PoP: Do you think it’ll come up in the third movie?
CK: Gosh, I hope not, because that means Batman has to die. I’m sure we’ll get a few Nolanisms to guide us through Dark Knight Rises. But a part of me always knew Nolan wasn’t going to bank on a sequel, because he’s all about being self-contained and rewarding the viewer.
PoP: Speaking of the viewer, wear your seatbelts, kids. That’s the only way Harvey Dent survived that crash. And how brilliant is the ferry scene? This is so twisted, but it’s a perfect climax because it’s unpredictable.
CK: And it gets me thinking. I never see this movie without putting myself on each boat and wondering what I would do, and it gets me back to what I asked yesterday – how would we deal with this without a Batman?
PoP: Easy. Those criminals are toast.
CK: Fair enough. The Gothamites wouldn’t have a Batman to stand as a symbol of goodness.
PoP: I just think regular people would pull the trigger, easy.
CK: I have to say, Oldman just gives me chills throughout this movie. He’s so frustrated with the situation and with his own guilt that he takes it out on Batman, and when he says, “I have to save Dent!” I completely understand where he’s coming from.
PoP: Unrelated to your man-crush on Gary Oldman—
CK: You say that like it’s a bad thing.
PoP: I like how Batman’s eyes go all white for this final scene. It’s a nice nod toward the comics, but it also helps explain how that would work, practically speaking.
CK: Remember how I said Batman has to fight the good guys to be a hero? Told you it was coming up again.
PoP: He’s fighting the bad guys, too. He took out the “doctors” without any trouble.
CK: But he has to stop the cops before they accidentally kill the hostages. The cops won’t listen to Batman so he has to take the law into his own hands, literally. He can’t fight the bad guys, so he has to stop the good guys from killing innocents.
PoP: He’s a dark knight. Boo-yah.
CK: Do you think Joker intended both boats to blow each other up?
PoP: I think he was going to blow them up either way.
CK: I disagree. He’s so disappointed when the boats don’t explode. I think this was another case of him creating a situation where no one wins, no matter what.
PoP: Is Joker straddling Batman supposed to be homoerotic? He says Batman “completes” him, and he talks about doing this whole fighting thing forever.
CK: Y’know, that’s come up a lot, actually. I think, for one, it’s another Nolan obsession – Joker’s obsessed with Batman as the only person who operates on his intellectual and theatrical level, but there have been comics – The Dark Knight Returns, especially, where Joker’s been pretty much in love with Batman.
PoP: Nice nod to Batman ’89 with tossing Joker off the roof.
CK: Another moment where I was almost disappointed that they couldn’t come up with a better ending for the character, but then Nolan turns it on its head – literally.
PoP: The upside-down shot is genius, and I don’t know why Nolan didn’t win Best Director.
CK: Because Slumdog Millionaire was a way better movie.
PoP: You’re being sarcastic.
CK: Of course I am. Look how far Batman has come, though; he didn’t save Ra’s last time, but he won’t let Joker die.
PoP: I think part of that is that if Joker dies, Joker wins by getting Batman to break his rule.
CK: Oh, yeah. I can’t help feeling that Nolan was leaving it open for a sequel, though, because when you have a character as interesting as The Joker you don’t just skip over him. It’s really a shame that Ledger died, if only because I wanted to see these two “do this... forever.”
PoP: This Two-Face finale is kind of clever because I honestly forgot that he was still out there, but Nolan does a pretty solid job tying up the whole film in about ten minutes.
CK: Yeah, it felt a little like a ploy for a sequel at first, after I figured out that it wasn’t just ending the movie quickly. It’s really the only way this movie can end – The Dark Knight is about escalation and fighting for the city’s soul, and Harvey Dent is the tragic culmination of those two plots. This isn’t Batman’s movie anymore; it’s about what happens when the whole city becomes involved.
PoP: I think what makes this movie great is that even if you take Batman out there’s so much interesting stuff happening that it’s like getting more than one movie at once.
CK: You know, you’re right. It’s a Batman movie, but Nolan and the crew build such an enormous world filled with interesting characters in whom we’re invested. You could easily do a Gotham Central series within this franchise.
PoP: A what?
CK: It’s a comic book, basically a police procedural set in Gotham. Like, how would a regular police team react to dealing with Batman and Mr. Freeze and The Joker? Can you be a normal cop in such a weird city?
PoP: You can, if you’re Gary Oldman.
CK: You know, I still haven’t pieced together the “five dead, two of them cops.”
PoP: Me neither. Maroni, his driver, the bartender, Wuertz, and maybe Gordon thinks Ramirez is dead?
CK: That’s probably the best option. But the bigger issue is the ending, how poetically the movie ends. Just as efficiently as Nolan introduced all of these characters, he ties up their stories – often without words.
PoP: Definitely – Christopher Nolan could make a fabulous silent film, particularly if Hans Zimmer does the music.
CK: God, that ending. It ought to be cheesy saying the name of the movie right at the end, but Gary Oldman just sells it. It’s so beautiful.
PoP: I’m not gonna cry over it like you are, but yeah – it’s easily the best comic book movie ever.
CK: On that, my friend, we can agree.
That concludes our “Armrest Review” of The Dark Knight. Come back tomorrow for a few preview thoughts on The Dark Knight Rises, and don’t forget we’ll bring you a full review of Christopher Nolan’s final Batman film at 9 a.m. on Friday! Stay tuned, loyal readers – you won’t want to miss this.
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