Since I watched "Batman I thought The Dark Knight would be a good comparison watch. I am a huge Chritian Bale fan, I've loved him since Empire of the Sun. I haven't seen The Dark Knight since it came out on DVD, which was probably 2009. I even had to look and I do own a DVD of it... What was I thinking with that purchase?!? Watching it out of the blue I needed a little refresher, so I looked up some stats on IMDB about the film. I had forgotten it was the second of the three Christian Bale Batman films, I thought it was the first. The film was nominated for eight Oscar and had two wins, Sound Editing and Supporting Actor. How was Heath Ledger only 28 when he died??? I did not realize that til now, among so many other things about this film.
I gotta say the style of this film is very understated yet intricate. The color pallets is washed out but rich with beautiful layers of texture. The grittiness of Gotham and the sleek world of Bruce Wayne are seamless. I always love to see the Batcave, where all the cool toys are kept. But the Bat cave in this film is a bare concrete room with elevating levels to reveal the Bat suite and other gadgets. It is a beautiful bare room, a huge endless ceiling grid of white lighting, and a couple of old furnaces to quickly get rid of some trash. I kinda feel a bit of a let down with this Bat cave though. It's simple and I understated story wise why it is designed this way, I'm just more of a flashy Bat cave kinda girl. Plus having just watched Batman (1989) the build up and music in that film lended to that Bat cave coolness.
As for the film it self, I feel like this time watching it I realized it's quite hokey. It feels like it's two different films, the joker story and the Harvey Dent storyline. The Harvey Dent / TwoFace script is filled with sometimes silly dialogue, really bad one liners and is kind of all over the place. If only the story focused more on the Joker and well written lines and of course performance it would be a much better film. It was kind of crazy to see the difference between the two stories and performances now. It's also hard not to compare the recent "Joker" film to this version of the Joker.
The Dark Knight will appear in this weeks #MarchMadness bracket of the Best Production Designg of the 2000's. Make sure to vote!