Review: The Dark Knight

Last week I went to the theater (a rare occurrence) to see Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. I had not followed the film at all until I saw the trailer for it leading into Crystal Skull, which I saw back in May. Nonetheless, the hype machine surrounding the movie just in the month or so preceding it alone built up my expectations for it considerably.

So did it live up to them? Yes. It did. Not only does it surpass Batman Begins, it surpasses most other movies that have been made in the last 10 years. Why? It's simple: it's entertaining and it makes you think. This is not merely some by-the-numbers action movie. Nor is it just a smart, well-crafted action movie like Batman Begins. No, this film is a smart, well-crafted crime drama that's engrossing, thought-provoking and at times downright disturbing. Dark Knight takes all the things that worked so well with its predecessor and seamlessly adds in a dark and unnerving tension that it pulls off for one reason:




Everyone should be familiar with the story behind Heath Ledger's involvement in this film. Ledger died of a prescription drug overdose in January of 2008, after months of sleep disturbances and other issues that many (including Ledger himself) attributed to his work on The Dark Knight among other factors.

Watching the film, it is not difficult to see why. Ledger's Joker is so brilliantly malevolent that his mere presence on the screen creates a certain uneasiness upon a first viewing of the film. He surpasses nearly all other onscreen villains - including Hannibal Lecter - in creating the illusion that he is capable of doing anything to anyone no matter what the situation.

Joker's sense of always being in control follows an idea that Alfred elucidates early on the film: that some men just want to see the world burn. Joker has no code of ethics, no real agenda, nothing to protect, and thus no Achilles heel. He just wants to see the world destroy itself. Batman, on the other hand, seems outdated and ineffective by comparison. Rigid and inflexible, bound by principle, he is not a match for a force as destructive as The Joker. Ledger gives his character so much depth that he essentially becomes the film itself and embodies the key ideas and questions that it raises. He says at one point in the film that "people are only as good as the world allows them to be." Whether Joker is right or wrong is debatable - and I imagine one of the purposes of the film was to get people to consider questions like that one - but the film clearly suggests that he has a point.


The Dark Knight is an outstanding film that makes itself unforgettable in a way that other superhero and comic book movies cannot, because it takes a risk and makes a point that few of them dare try to convey: that the world is not black and white, but instead many shades of gray. It's a theme that I've found intriguing for years, and this film manages to combine it with all of the other things that I would want in a film: style, wit, action and suspense. This is how movies should be. The only regrettable thing is that the very thing that makes it such a powerful film - Ledger - will never get a chance to do it again.

Warpoet Blog

This is my first entry on this blog. It's not my first attempt at blogging, however. Rather, it's the latest in a string of efforts spanning across several years, culminating in numerous blogs that were attempted, given maybe one or two entries and then abandoned altogether.

Still, throughout it all, I've been active online - gaming, in chat rooms, and on message boards - and have engaged in many discussions on a variety of different topics. I've been successful these past few years because my tone has more accurately reflected me than it had in years prior. Perhaps that's what I needed to make a successful blog.

I will talk about a lot of things. My hobbies: gaming, film, television, MMA/Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu etc...but I think that the more important topics are the political ones. I have a very serious interest in politics, particularly Middle Eastern affairs and the Iraq War. As a result, I've spent much of the past several years patrolling the internet, usually behind enemy lines, trolling and brutalizing morons (usually neoconservatives and those who support them) to spectacular results. Still, after being banned and having my posts edited on so many occasions, I began to wonder: would it not be easier to launch attacks from my own base of operations? Where my ability to shatter propaganda could never be hindered? I look forward to finding out.