The Dark Knight Playlist and Review
I dislocated my knee Thursday night so all I’ve got to do is stay at home on my bed. I figured I’m about a week late with the playlist and review, who needs my input? With the extra time “presented” to me, I changed my mind. It also “puts a smile on my face”
The Dark Knight has been a huge critical and financial success, grossing just under $160 million in an opening weekend, critical praise of 95% and becoming the #1 movie on IMDB. So better late then never with my review and playlist?
My playlist tried to involve some key quotes surrounding the movie. Granted the real soundtrack is great but let’s give the movie a good playlist anyway.
1. The Thieves They Are Everywhere by Bridges and Powerlines
2. Pencil Rot by Stephen Malkmus
3. Only Clowns Are Scary by I Love Math
4. Boy With A Coin by Iron & Wine
5. Smile Like You Mean It by The Killers
6. Knights of Cydonia by Muse
7. I’m Your Villain by Franz Ferdinand
8. The Angry Mob by Kaiser Chiefs
9. Psycho Killer by The Talking Heads
10. No Key, No Plan by Okkervil River
11. Black Heroes by Ratatat
Here’s the movie review below (CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!!!!)
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The Dark Knight starts off with an elaborate bank robbery scene where anonymous bank robbers in clown masks do various jobs while robbing the bank. I’ve seen this awesome scene beforehand in the “sneak peaks”. Where the Joker outwits the other thieves. At this point I was really worried that I’ve seen too much trailers that would ultimately wreck a lot of the film. This was not the case luckily.
The hype surrounding this movie was ENORMOUS where almost every single person has said it was good. It’s one of the few movies that lives up to both the critical and fan hype.
The best part of this movie in my opinion is the character development. All three main characters, Wayne, Dent and Joker each have their own story and their development or in the case of the Joker, simple his menacing personality. I don’t want to take anything from Ledger when I say this because he was great in itself but the real person who made this movie, is Harvey “Two-Face” Dent. Aaron Eckhart is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors (Thank You For Smoking is hilarious) as his portrayal of Dent is down right brilliant. Two-Face unlike the Tommy Lee Jones version, was a very serious and believable character switching brilliant from hero to villain. His path or ascension to the half-dead monster plays out… beautifully? I enjoyed every second of Dent and made me like him more then the Joker. I hated the demise of Two-Face and wished he would be in the next film which is what I thought they were going to do but sadly, he was killed off. (I warned you that there would be spoilers?).
There’s not much to say about the Joker, he’s hilarious but without actually being funny. Ledger’s portrayal was superb though the ending was kind of sour to me and I’m not sure I liked the idea of the Joker being nothing but an anonymous insane maniacal killer. I definitely wanted more of the Joker when all was said was done. It was played great but is it wrong for me to say I wanted much more? Besides the Joker deserves a proper send off.
Batman in itself was slightly dull (not to other heroes standards) but I’ve been used to the superhero franchise for some time to know that heroes are actually quite boring. I love villains and I love the bad guy 
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Another key part of this movie is the action scenes. The actions were thrilling, innovative and fast paced. The cinematography an direction of these scenes were directing gold. At times I found it hard to keep up and was a little bit confused but I think it’s because of the mindfuck that Christopher Nolan likes to do with people.
This movie felt realistic overall which makes it stand out unlike most superhero movies. With all the explosions and other technological gadgets, the people felt like they were very real. Alfred (Caine) and Lucius Fox (Freeman) were both great characters and voices of reason. There weren’t many loopholes with character’s decisions, as in I didn’t question any motives or think anyone was downright idiotic.
A great film, not sure it’s worthy of the #1 spot on IMDB just yet. We’ll see if it stands the test of time. Another film has probably been ordered but I have no idea what they can honestly do that so that it wouldn’t be a disappointment.
The joker’s character was brilliantly performed with both his acting and abnormal body movements. However, I feel the acting of batman,Dent, and his girlfriend(rachel I believe)was absolutely awful with dialogue that seemed so overly sophisticated and far fetched. The movie could have been shortened as well(almost 3 hours).