Reconsidering "The Dark Knight"

This week has been a blast of movieland serendipity. Last weekend, motivated by a family member's Netflix choice, I rewatched The Dark Knight, and mentioned Christopher Nolan as one of the best directors working today. Today, I found out the release date for the next Batman film, July 20, 2012. This is the same weekend The Dark Knight was released in 2008 to incredible critical, audience and financial acclaim. This was one of the primary reasons for the delay of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from November 2008 to July 2009; the studio (ridiculously) felt that it was the weekend choice that made The Dark Knight so successful.

But I digress. When The Dark Knight was released, it became one of the most successful movies ever released. The anticipation was heightened with the tragic death of Heath Ledger, the film's Joker (for the three people who live in a cave somewhere). It shot to the top of IMDb's top 250 list, and two years later has settled at number 10. It's sequel is one of the most anticipated films right now, including with yours truly. I adore The Dark Knight, and rank it among my favorite action films.

But rewatching it, my opinion has slightly changed. Mind you, I still adore it, but I've noticed some flaws in the storytelling I hadn't noticed before. The first two hours are some of the best committed to film. Ledger is a revelation, and was absolutely terrifying in his unpredictability. The unpredictability factor is gone after repeat viewings, but he's still pretty darn scary (come on, who isn't scared of someone who randomly shoots at cars driving down the street?). The script is smart, the action exciting, and the whole film is an intense, suspenseful slow burn towards an exciting climax involving ethics and choices. The film pulls no punches, does not flinch, and it goes places the typical super-hero movie doesn't go. Hence, my adoration.

But when Gordon receives that phone call, the film starts to fall apart. When Nolan let Harvey Two-Face out of the box, and he kidnaps Gordon's family, the film becomes overblown. It tries to do too much at the end, cram in another subplot. And it does the film no favors. I have to admit, usually after the Joker's upside down "madness" speech, I turn the movie off, because for me that feels like the film's natural conclusion. Adding on another twenty minutes of Harvey Two-Face stopped a great film dead. Now, in a narrative sense, Nolan had to do something to get Batman exiled; the Harvey thing works, but it doesn't work well. So in a moment of Monday morning quarterbacking, wouldn't the film itself be better served for Batman to be blamed for Harvey's disappearance, and have had Two-Face be an underground villain for this upcoming third film? Same end result, and it would be an interesting plot to have Harvey commit crimes, but them constantly being blamed on Batman, and have Gordon's family's peril be a part of this film? Alas, this is just my very overblown sense of ego talking, but to me, this adjustment would have sent The Dark Knight into the sublime, and set up for an interesting sequel. It's still a great film, but not as great as it could have been.

Now, lets pop some popcorn, and listen to the harebrained rumors and theories for titles, villains and wait for what I hope will be an even better film in 2012.