The Dark Night Rises *Film Review* (Guest Post)

Happy Saturday everyone! 

 I want to thank Larry Heart for Guest Blogging today, so please read His Review below!

Guest Film Review

About The Dark Knight

You may have heard a lot of great things about The Dark Night. Despite the lavish praise, be prepared to be a little disappointed. Although The Dark Night was expected to be the greatest superhero movie of its time, it failed to claim this title. The film’s director and co-writer, Christopher Nolan, makes a wonderful attempt at an entertainment blockbuster, but it simply did not live up to its pre-release expectations.

The Dark Night is supposed to be telling the audience the tale of a city and the plight of its people. However, the movie fails to get past the fact that the movie is centered around a man in a mask swooping around trying to stop a seemingly unstoppable bad guy and save some innocents. 

The movie is essentially about two men, Batman (Christian Bale) and The Joker (Heath Ledger). Batman is too single-minded in his sense of justice. His conscience underpins all and his naivete is unrealistic and unentertaining. The Joker is supposed to represent chaos and is too fictional a character to inspire any real fear. The audience is supposed to be rooting for “good” in the form of Batman to win for the sake of Gotham. But what we really see is simply two forces, which cannot be identified with, battling it out. Nolan makes a grand attempt at capturing the audience through his script. But the effort seems to come up short.
Many Batman fans may be expecting to see long, complicated fight scenes that they can lose themselves in. However, in The Dark Night, this is not the case. There is lots of fighting, but it happens so quickly that there is no time to reflect or properly appreciate it.

The movie drags on for as long as 152 minutes. A lull in the second half makes the movie seem even longer. You definitely won’t be sitting on the edge of your seat for this movie. It seems as if Nolan’s take on this story places more emphasis on psychology than action. So when you would rather see an exciting fight scene, you have to suffer through the head games that are supposed to be pushing the story.

Critics have praised The Dark Knight describing it as a wonderful package of entertainment and art. But the movie is too dark and gritty to be thought of as entertaining art. Nolan tried to take the superhero genre in a new direction, but it is hoped that it will find its way back – if it hasn’t already.

Before the movie was released, and amidst the media frenzy of an expected epic akin to Batman Begins or better, Heath Ledger died unexpectedly. Immediately there was talk of an icon in the making and whispers of an Oscar for Ledger. Well, it has now been proven that tragedy cannot turn a poorly interpreted role into a stellar performance. Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker is juvenile at best. You get the feeling that Nolan wants you to fall in love with him and end up rooting for the bad guy. But it’s impossible for anyone to be able to identify with The Joker who cares nothing about anyone, not even himself.

In summary, if you are looking for an exciting movie with stunning fight scenes and explosions and characters that you can relate to, then The Dark Night is not for you. Despite all the hype before and during the release of the movie, it will definitely disappoint serious fans of the superhero genre.

Article written by Larry Heart.
http://www.writing-job-online.com/