Join Empire | Log In RSS  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  iPhone App
The Empire office TV is switched off. Empire Magazine
Search   
Empire Magazine
Join Empire
Get our free weekly newsletter

 
Oscars 2010 Microsite
Coverage of the 82nd Academy Awards
X-Files Season 1
Subscribe to Empire magazine today

Reviews Want Empire film reviews on your iPhone?
STAR RATINGS EXPLAINED
5 Stars Classic
4 Stars Excellent
3 Stars Good
2 Stars Fair
1 Star Tragic

POSTER ART
Click poster to enlarge
More posters to select






FILM DETAILS
Certificate
12A
Cast
Christian Bale
Michael Caine
Morgan Freeman
Heath Ledger
Gary Oldman
Aaron Eckhart
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Eric Roberts
Nestor Carbonell
Anthony Michael Hall
Melinda McGraw
Nathan Gamble .
Directors
Christopher Nolan.
Screenwriters
Bob Kane
David S Goyer
Christopher Nolan
Jonathan Nolan.
Running Time
152 minutes


LATEST FILM REVIEWS
A Single Man
4 Star Empire Rating
Ponyo On The Cliff
4 Star Empire Rating
Battle for Terra
3 Star Empire Rating
Beyond The Pole
3 Star Empire Rating
Food, Inc.
4 Star Empire Rating



5 STAR REVIEWS
Precious
5 Star Empire Rating
Red Balloon, The
5 Star Empire Rating
Up In The Air
5 Star Empire Rating
Avatar
5 Star Empire Rating
Departures
5 Star Empire Rating

The Dark Knight (12A)

Watch The Trailer (View all trailers and clips)

The Dark Knight
View Image Gallery »
Plot
Batman (Bale) hopes to hang up his cape and hand over crime-fighting duties to District Attorney Harvey Dent (Eckhart). But the arrival of clown-faced master criminal The Joker (Ledger) forces the masked vigilante to question everything he stands for.

Review

The hero is a billionaire industrialist who likes to beat people up. The only good cop in the city employs dishonest ones. The psychotic terrorist torturing civilians and chopping up criminals… Well, he’s just about the most charismatic character you’ll ever meet. Welcome to Gotham, where no good deed goes unpunished. And welcome to The Dark Knight, an anarchic, malevolent fury of a movie that takes a switchblade to the face of summer conformity and carves a work of twisted beauty out of it.
 
Anticipation and escalation were the key words in the build up to, post-Indy, 2008’s most hyped and combustible blockbuster. Director/co-writer Christopher Nolan has talked of making a bigger, bolder picture, unfettered by the origin-construction constraints of the still-excellent Batman Begins. The marketing has been masterful: a lesson in tease and please from 42 Entertainment (earning what must surely be the only mention of a movie’s PR firm in an Empire review; whatever, they deserve it). Then, just as the Sturm und Drang around The Dark Knight built to a frenzy came the January death of Heath Ledger. Peeks at his performance as the Clown Prince Of Crime had already prompted whispers of Oscar, of the birth of an icon. Cynics suggested his passing would boost the box office; pessimists griped that a comic-book movie could never serve as a suitable epitaph to the Brokeback Mountain star.
 
And — yes — as was, perhaps, always inevitable, The Dark Knight is Ledger’s movie. It is a towering performance. From his menacing, pencil-packing greeting to Gotham’s Mob fraternity (one of the most economic and effective character introductions ever), to the threat and fire he conjures in exchanges with Maggie Gyllenhaal’s sexy, sophisticated brief and “The Bat-maaan”, to the Sophie’s choice surprises of the third act, he is pure, powerful, immense. A force of fucking nature. Informed by Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke and Jeph Loeb’s The Long Halloween, Ledger’s Joker is anarchy in a three-piece, a ruthless villain who cares for nothing, not even himself. His function, crafted in the hive mind of the Nolans and as Ledger plays him, is to cause chaos, to question everything, to push everyone to extremes, to show Batman there are no rules to this game.
 
This doesn’t mean Christian Bale is sidelined as either Bruce Wayne or his suited, re-booted vigilante. There’s no repeat of Keaton’s eclipse by Nicholson’s “I’d like eggs with that” Joker turn in Burton’s Batman. Bale is too muscular and committed for that, the Nolans’ script too evenly interested in every character in its universe. So, Batman is more conflicted than ever, still clinging to his parents’ memory but minus the scowly brooding that can make DC’s darkest hero feel like a moody teen. Now his concerns are much more immediate: how to neuter a threat that could destroy a city, how to empower a new DA without blowing his cover, how to work outside the system without bringing it down. He’s Dirty Harry with a conscience: a conscience The Joker plays like a violin.
 
Pre-release presumptions about The Dark Knight being the comic-book Heat are valid, if not all-encompassing. Visually the comparison is spot on, and regular Nolan cinematographer Wally Pfister deserves props: ironically The Dark Knight brings Batman out of the shadows, through a burnished, Michael Mann Chicago into a daylight noir. But while The Joker and Batman are both costumed “freaks”, they don’t completely share the McCauley/Hanna dynamic. De Niro’s criminal, for one, had principles; The Joker has none. And Mann’s film was as much about being a professional as being a cop or a criminal, meaning the characters that are most thematically similar are Gary Oldman’s hard-working lieutenant and Aaron Eckhart’s idealistic lawyer (yes, they do manage to pull off that oxymoron), who are trying to change their world without recourse to gadgets or PVC underpants.
 
And so on and on (it runs an epic 152 minutes), Nolan navigates through a moral maze and some pointed politicking, but without ever stinting on stunts or explosions. It is thoughtful but never dull, and the OTT action and expansion — underscored in IMAX sequences which will no doubt look spectacular on the enormo-screen (Empire reviewed from a 35mm print) — are generally to its benefit, even though Nolan still appears more comfortable and engaged with interacting people than trucks and Batbikes. After a blistering opening, there’s a second act lull and a story shift not quite as elegant (or, some might argue, even coherent) as you’d expect from the director of The Prestige. But The Dark Knight is spectacular, visionary blockbuster entertainment: pretty much everything you could hope for and then some. It isn’t perfect but then, like its hero, like his late co-star, and as Nolan’s fitting tribute so ably observes, nobody is.

Verdict
Ledger’s performance is monumental, but The Dark Knight lives up to it. Nolan cements his position as Hollywood’s premier purveyor of blockbuster smarts – and the Batbike is kinda cool, too.


Reviewer: Mark Dinning

Get this review and thousands more on on your iPhone, download the Empire Movie Guide now!

Write Your Review
To submit your own review and rating please login or register.

Advertisement

Related Reviews

Your Reviews
Average user rating for The Dark Knight
Empire Star Rating

Empire User Rating

Christopher Nolan goes back to basics for this excellent sequel to the superb Batman begins. It may not carry the same complexities of its predecessor but this is unrelenting popcorn entertainment. Nolan delivers some truly bold and brilliant set pieces. If the story itself gets a little lost in translation it is compensated for by the performances (ledger, eckhart) and its scope. Watch out marvel for Batman 3! ... Read More

devoy About me
19:50, 31 January 2010 | Report This Post

Empire User Rating

anything lower than 4 stars is an injustice to 2 and a half hours of pure escapism ... Read More

ivanahump About me
09:09, 15 December 2009 | Report This Post

RE: The Dark Knight

I still have fond memories of seeing i]pencil trickat the cinema for the first time.... ... Read More

Qwerty Norris About me
01:22, 06 November 2009 | Report This Post

RE: The Dark Knight
Empire User Rating

Simply one of the best films i have seen in a long time highly reccomend it ... Read More

lfcrab About me
22:24, 05 November 2009 | Report This Post

RE: The Dark Knight
Empire User Rating

I don't need to give a review because you have probably read one already and everybody knows that this is, without doubt, a superhero masterpiece at the top of the game. Iron Man is second on my list... 10/10 (An extra mark for Ledger's truly amazing performance - you can't deny it) ... Read More

robwillphill About me
20:31, 04 November 2009 | Report This Post

RE: The Dark Knight
Empire User Rating

i don't need to give a review because you have probably read one already and everybody knows that this is, without doubt, a superhero masterpiece. Iron Man is second on my list... 10/10 ... Read More

robwillphill About me
20:28, 04 November 2009 | Report This Post

RE: The Dark Knight
Empire User Rating

i don't need to give a review because you have probably read one already and everybody knows that this is, without doubt, a superhero masterpiece. Iron Man is second on my list... 10/10 ... Read More

robwillphill About me
20:26, 04 November 2009 | Report This Post

RE: WHY SO SERIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Empire User Rating

I don't really understand what plot holes people refer to in relation to this film or why some say the Two face plot was tacked on. In a nutshell: Dent represents what purity is left in Gotham. Batman tries to defend it, the Joker tries to destroy it. The Joker succeeds in destroying Dent, but Batman insists that the Joker cannot win, and colludes in a cover up of what really happened to preserve what Dent stood for. Without the Dent plot, there is no single symbol of the battl... Read More

jobloffski About me
17:16, 07 October 2009 | Report This Post

RE: WHY SO SERIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so thought the hype surrounding Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker was unjustified, for certain a good solid performance but found Jack Nicholson's Joker in the earlier film, to reflect the graphic novel character more closely ell hype is hype, But I thought it was a pretty noteworthy performance. A couple of people have said it was an easy role because acting 'crazy' is easy. I'm not pretending to know anything about acting, but I would guess it wouldn't be easy to do 'crazy' yet bel... Read More

Sotto Voce About me
13:49, 02 October 2009 | Report This Post

RE: WHY SO SERIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A few people have said that the Joker was an easy role, because playing a nut-job is easy. Without pretending to know about acting, I would disagree with that. The character wasn't just 'crazy', it was a coherent character, and I'd say it wouldn't be easy to play someone 'crazy', and yet still a proper believable person. Hype is hype, but I thought Ledger's performance was really noteworthy. As for the film itself, I think its great, but I agree that the Two Face story feels tacked-on. I w... Read More

Sotto Voce About me
13:35, 02 October 2009 | Report This Post

Next Page

SUBSCRIBE TO EMPIRE
Subscribe To Empire Magazine
Subscribe And Get X-Files Season 1 DVD
Get the entire first season of the classic sci-fi series on DVD when you subscribe to Empire magazine!


CURRENT HIGHLIGHTS
Colin Firth on A Single Man
The Oscar nominee discusses his stunning latest role

Benicio del Toro on The Wolfman
The star talks delays, reshoots and getting furry...

10 Egregious Oscar Snubs
The worthy contenders that the Academy overlooked

Celebrity Stars In Their Eyes
The winners and losers when actors play real people

Movie Poster Mashups #56
Browse your iPod, iPad and Apple-related movie poster mashups


Back | Print This Page | Email This Page | Back To Top

EXCLUSIVE OFFERS
Free X-Files Season 1
Free when you subscribe to Empire
Subscribe Today »
Magazine Special Offers
Special offers on your favourite magazines
Latest Offers »
The Empire iPhone App
Every Empire film review at your fingertips
Click here »
 
Movie News  |  Empire Blog  |  Movie Reviews  |  Future Films  |  Features  |  Video Interviews  |  Image Gallery  |  Competitions  |  Forum  |  Magazine  |  Resources  |  Free Movies
 
Mojo4music  |  Q4Music  |  Kerrang!  |  Aloud.com  |  Kiss
 
© Bauer Consumer Media | Terms And Conditions | Our Data Promise To You | Contact Us | Empire FAQ
Bauer Consumer Media. Company number 1176085 (England). Registered Office: 21 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2DY