Product Description Director Christopher Nolan (The Prestige) returns to Gotham City with this sequel to the critically-acclaimed fan favourite, Batman Begins. In The Dark Knight, Batman (Christian Bale, – American Psycho) squares off against a new, completely psychotic foe: the Joker (Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain). However, the Dark Knight finds himself fighting a battle on two fronts when he learns that a prominent political figure named Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart, Thank You For Smoking) is concealing a dastardly alter-ego known as Two Face. Stills from The Dark Knight .co.uk Review The Dark Knight arrives with tremendous hype (best superhero movie ever? posthumous Oscar for Heath Ledger?), and incredibly, it lives up to all of it. But calling it the best superhero movie ever seems like faint praise, since part of what makes the movie great--in addition to pitch-perfect casting, outstanding writing, and a compelling vision--is that it bypasses the normal fantasy element of the superhero genre and makes it all terrifyingly real. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) is Gotham City's new district attorney, charged with cleaning up the crime rings that have paralysed the city. He enters an uneasy alliance with the young police lieutenant, Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), and Batman (Christian Bale), the caped vigilante who seems to trust only Gordon--and whom only Gordon seems to trust. They make progress until a psychotic and deadly new player enters the game: the Joker (Heath Ledger), who offers the crime bosses a solution--kill the Batman. Further complicating matters is that Dent is now dating Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, after Katie Holmes turned down the chance to reprise her role), the longtime love of Batman's alter ego, Bruce Wayne. In his last completed role before his tragic death, Ledger is fantastic as the Joker, a volcanic, truly frightening force of evil. And he sets the tone of the movie: the world is a dark, dangerous place where there are no easy choices. Eckhart and Oldman also shine, but as good as Bale is, his character turns out rather bland in comparison (not uncommon for heroes facing more colorful villains). Director/co-writer Christopher Nolan (Memento) follows his critically acclaimed Batman Begins with an even better sequel that sets itself apart from notable superhero movies like Spider-Man 2 and Iron Man because of its sheer emotional impact and striking sense of realism--there are no suspension-of-disbelief superpowers here. At 152 minutes, it's a shade too long, and it's much too intense for kids. But for most movie fans--and not just superhero fans--The Dark Knight is a film for the ages. --David Horiuchi
S**Y
The Dark Knight [Blu-Ray] Review
The Dark Knight is exactly what hollywood has been missing until a film of this magnitude was released, with the amount of half arsed, money making, greedy film companies taking your hard earned money for over hyped rubbish, you don't see many films that really were written and made with such passion as this film is, and it delivers for the people. Everyone involved had worked there arse off to make a masterpiece like this film and the final outcome prooves that beyond a doubpt. Most of the writers, producers, and filmers biggest example is steven speilberg abuse there name with the trash they have delivered to us in recent years.Christopher Nolan is a brilliant story teller and producer of films and makes sure he delivers the most brilliant story, picture and sound he can possibly deliver to people. As we will see him do this year when The Dark Knight Rises is released and will conclude a brilliant Batman trilogy.Heath Ledger won an academy award for his role as "Joker" in The Dark Knight ledger is amazing, brilliant, scary, and to be honest an academy award is not enough recognition for a performance of that caliber, so many actors/actresses spew out the same characteristics in every single film they appear in and get to call themselves actors movie after movie and get paid ridiculous amounts of money to do so.The Dark Knight is the most awesome, action packed, twisted adventure, you can ever hope to see, and the most well written and acted film i have seen hollywood release, in a long time.A short overview of the film:Batman (Bruce Wayne) raises the stakes in his war on crime. With the help of Lieutenant Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to distroy the remaining criminal organizations that corrupt the police, lawyers, and which also plague and terrorise the city's streets. The partnership proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a reign of chaos unleashed by a rising criminal mastermind known to the terrified citizens of Gotham as "The Joker".This film is hands down the way batman and was always ment to be envisioned and portrayed, and is defently one of the top 10 films to see before you die. If you have not seen this film then do yourself a favour and buy it on Blu-Ray watch it and be amazed at how trully brilliant this film is.The action scenes where shot in IMAX (the best picture quality available) and all other scenes are shot in 70mm lens (2nd best picture quality available) making this a brilliant film to watch and enjoy in the most crisp high definition experiance on BLU-RAY, mix that with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and your in for one hell of a treat.
B**7
Believe the hype
This is easily the best superhero film I've ever seen bar none.It builds superbly on the groundwork laid in Batman Begins and expands the characters whilst bringing us deeper into Bruce Wayne's tormented world.This film succeeds for me because it brings the fantasy world of Batman ever so close to being real. Batman deals with very 'real' enemies and situations and pretty much everything that happens in the film could conceivably happen in the real world. This may not be important for some but for me it makes the whole thing incredibly powerful. The scenes near the beginning of the film where Alfred sees Bruce's injuries show that Christopher Nolan was mindful about making Batman seem more mortal and it works brilliantly. Batman of course always was an 'ordinary' man but I don't think any of the other films portrayed this so effectively.The tone of the film is incredibly dark. I remember leaving the cinema and thinking the film could have been 18 rated and I would have thought it reasonable.Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker is one of the best movie villains ever. So much was made of his death and I was skeptical if the praise heaped on his Joker was out of sympathy but I can say categorically it was wholly deserved. Ledger's Joker is different form Jack Nicholson's and is so deeply psychologically disturbed the character is genuinely unsettling. The guy is absolutely unhinged in the worst possible way.The set pieces of the film are amazing. The whole section where Batman goes to Hong Kong to 'extract' a villain who has fled is genius. It takes Batman global, again adding to whole feeling of realism.The picture quality of the disc is top class. The bitrate of the VC-1 encode averages around the high 20's and on occasion reaches the high 40's. The soundtrack is Dolby Digital or a Dolby Tru HD lossless version. These will keep the audiophiles happy I'm sure.There are some amazing plot twists, playing with the audience and keeping you guessing about key characters who die.The creation of Harvey two face is also quite harrowing and the special effects are amongst the best I've seen. Everything in the film oozes quality.Overall an utterly superb sequel - possibly the best sequel, easily rivaling Empire Strikes Back for its plot and character development. The only downside is that it's so good, how the heck can the next Batman film measure up to this??Highly recommended.`
M**U
Beyond Batman
Yes this is an action film, yes this is a superhero film, but it is also so much more than that. All the acting performances are so powerful that it seems unbelievably real. Heath Ledger's Joker is an astonishing creation, and his tragic death will transform this role into the stuff of legend. The film is just blessed through and through. The only bad thing about "Batman Begins" was the talentless Katie Holmes, and she turned down the role this time! Thank God. And thank Gyllenhaal for being infinitely better and adding to this film's many merits.For me, this was better than last year's Oscar winner, because it deals with similar themes and yet for all its cartoon origins seems realer and more powerful. How do you fight evil without becoming evil? How do you deal with criminals who "just want to watch the world burn" and who can't be bought or bullied? The gambit with the two ships is a simple borrowing from the history of Philosophy but it makes great cinema and adds ferocious fuel to the issues mentioned above.By the end of the film when we finally understand exactly why the film is called "The Dark Knight", Batman and our understanding of him and of crime and of what we might want someone like him to do with criminals have all altered forever. An astonishing achievement in film. It really does blur the boundaries between serious cinema and action films. The last film I saw that I liked more than this was a Lars von Trier film! The new Batman franchise is doomed, from here the only way to go is down.
Trustpilot
1 month ago
1 month ago