The Dark Knight: 10 years later.

I never understood all the hype and praise placed on this movie; some of it yes but not all. When I hear people say “The Dark Knight is the best comic book movie ever made!” my response is always “What?” There are far better comic book movies than that one. Now don’t get me wrong I do think it is a good movie, but is it the best comic book movie? No it is not and here is why:

-         The Joker: Heath Ledger was mesmerizing as the Joker and some have said he was the best person to have taken that role. Unfortunately I think the same people are caught up in his performance knowing it was his last before his unfortunate death prior to the release of the film. Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton’s 1989 ‘Batman’ film is so much better than Ledger. Nicholson brought the Joker to life in a way that had never been done before. He truly captured the essence of the comic book’s clown prince of crime. Ledger played up the Joker in a way that was not what comic book fans expected from that character. He was good but not as good as Nicholson.

 

 

-         Two-Face: I love this character and I was excited he was introduced in this film. But no sooner do they introduce him they kill him off and somehow Batman is the bad guy at the end of the day…WHAT??? Two-Face would have made for a great villain in his own Batman film and was completely wasted here.

 

 

-         People having to decide who lives and dies: The whole Joker rigging the two boats to blow up and leaving it to the people and prisoners on the boats to decide who dies was just dumb and very un-Joker like. Joker is an agent of chaos and does not care about what people will decide…he kills for fun and laughs and to get under Batman’s skin. The whole ship sequence was an attempt of Director Christopher Nolan to make this film deeper than it really is.

-         Batman the bad guy: So Commissioner Gordon and Batman its best for everyone that they do not find out the truth about Harvey Dent/Two-Face so Batman takes the wrap for killing Dent and everyone Dent killed prior to his death…WHAT?? It was such a stupid plot twist and again an attempt to give the film a deeper meaning than it really had.  

 

So what comic book films are better than ‘The Dark Knight’? Here’s a few:

-         Iron Man

-         Avengers

-         Avengers Infinity War

-         Every Captain America film

-         Spiderman (2002)

 

‘The Dark Knight’ was a great comic book movie, but definitely not the best.

Nuff said.

-Chris