Batman: The Dark Knight

The opening scene of the movie involves a bank robbery where all the robbers are dressed as clowns. Surprisingly they are going after mob money, which is nuts because they know the mob is going to came after them. As the robbers take each other out, the only one left standing is The Joker (Heath Ledger).

The police, led by Detective Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) are planning a massive raid on the banks that hold the mob money. Unfortunately for them, Lau (Chin Han), a Hong Kong national, has 'stolen' all the mob money and put it somewhere 'safe'.  The Joker shows up at their little meeting and tells them not to trust Lau, because he looks like a squealer. He has a proposition for them.  For half of their money, he will kill The Batman (Christian Bale). They  don't take him seriously, but when Batman actually travels to Hong Kong to snatch Lau and deliver him into the hands of the police they agree.  What follows is a wonderfully delicious display of violence, chaos, mayhem and explosions associated with The Joker.

He goes after the judge and the DA going against the mob and even the commissioner of the police department. The DA is none other than Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and as we watch he slowly descends into darkness. It comes to a head when he and his fiancée Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal) are both kidnapped and left in different places with high explosives. Harvey is saved but injured, but Rachel is killed.  He goes insane and becomes Two-Face.  He goes off creating havoc while trying to avenge Rachel. 

The Joker on the other hand, has managed to get Lau out of lockup and found where he hid all the money. The Joker doesn't want money, he wants actual good criminals, or something...it's hard to say with him. Anyway he and Batman have and all out battle  involving more clowns and doctors and that actually makes sense if you saw the film. So, Batman wins and The Joker laughs at him because he still can't take a life, but that's not the end of the film. Turns out that Two-Face wants Gordon to suffer and kidnaps the Gordon family. Batman runs over to save them, but there is a dilemma: Gotham needs Harvey Dent, so they pin all the murders on Batman, which makes no sense because we've just established that BATMAN DOESN'T KILL PEOPLE! Idiots. The final blah blah at the end of the movie ruins the final scene for me became Batman has to 'become the hero Gotham needs not the one they want'; he becomes the Dark Knight gag! And Jim Gordon Jr. (Nathan Gamble) is all like "why are they chasing Batman Daddy? He didn't do anything wrong."  And I'm there "hey kid, do you grow up to be Batgirl? No? The shut the hell up and get off the screen!"

So awesome movie, if you ignore the last ten minuets or so. The plot was jam packed and it was a little hard to sort through, but that might have been because I went into the movie without expecting any plot and then this complex one was dropped on my lap. There were a few things that I wasn't too sure about, like how The Joker and Lau were the only two to survive the bomb? And there was a few scenes where Batman and Alfred (Michael Caine)  were discussing people and I had no idea who there were talking about. Also, I don't care how many gadgets Batman has, I really don't think he can get a fingerprint off a fractured bullet.

The second thing that bothered me was Maggie Gyllenhaal. That's twice now I couldn't stand the woman who play Rachel, first Katie Holmes and now Maggie Gyllenhaal. Out of all the talented actresses they find these two that have absolutely no chemistry with anyone on screen. The only actual scene that Gyllenhaal has any emotions or anything is in the integration of Lau. Besides that it was like watching a manikin. Okay so she wasn't that bad, but she seriously had no chemistry with either Eckhart or Bale and since she was supposed to be in love with both of them I think that lack of chemistry was a big problem. At least she's dead now, so if there is a third one in the works, she can't mess that one up too.

Grade: 9/10