Add This to Your Netflix Queue: The Dark Knight

Actually, don’t wait that long.  Fork out some jack and go see it in the theater.

My wife and I went to see this on our anniversary last week.  We waited until the sold-out shows were over.  The theater was still crowded.

Yeah, I know.  There was a ton of hype about this movie.  Heath Ledger’s death only increased the expectations.  For me, it definitely delivered.  And I loathe superhero movies.

If you haven’t seen the move yet, a few spoilers follow:

“The Dark Knight” is a dark movie (and I’m not just talking about visually).  Gotham City is a city on the edge.  No one notices when a bus crashes through a bank wall.  The Joker is simply the Joker (if Ledger were still living, he would, in my opinion, still deserve an Oscar nod).  Little to no backstory (he gives differing accounts as to how he got his facial scars).  He’s over the top evil because he’s over the top evil.  The “White Knight”, DA Harvey Dent, succombs to evil over the death of his girlfriend (becoming Two Face).  Bruce Wayne gives serious thought to hanging up the cape because he’s a faceless, outcast hero… only to find it necessary to re-suit up when all other hope fades with the fall of Harvey Dent.  There’s a lot of death, a lot of colateral damage.  Yet, there is hope (the closing scene when the passengers on two boats are given the chance to blow up the other so they may live show that there is still good in Gotham), thus proving that not everyone is like the Joker.  In the end, Batman voluntarily becomes the outcast again, taking the gloom of the city upon himself (although not a perfect parallel, some definite parallels to Jesus can be made from the dialogue in the closing scenes).  Very dark, at times depressing, but certainly worth seeing.