Movie Review: The Dark Knight - Intense but lenghty

Rating: 6.5 / 10

I would have given it an even better rating if the lenght would be around 15 minutes less. The movie is too intense and too serious to keep you gripped for 2 hours and 30 minutes. When there is so much tension in the air, you need respite, which you get from songs in Hindi movies, but in Batman, you have no such room to breathe. At some point you feel that you have had your fill, but then there is too much on the platter.

The Batman enterprise , reprised by Christopher Nolan, has truly transformed it from its Comical past ( POW, SWISH days) to an almost unbelievably brutal and realistic present. The Joker is not the wicked laughing prankster of the past. He has become a psychopathic, killer with no remorse. He kills, because he enjoys it. He is a terrorist, who has no rules, no boundaries, no reason. And our Batman, is a confused man. He wants to remove the burden of being the Knight in shining armour. He wants to give it to a man with a face ( District Attorney). He has complete faith in the new DA to put the criminals in the cell, and clense Gotham once and for all and he does not dissapoint. Just when our hero decides its time to put in his papers!! Joker strikes... And nothing would be the same, anymore....

Nolan has done an exceptional job in building the momentum in the action sequences. Rather than using a lot of noise, he has used silence. The editing in this film is phenomenal. Complex, but very well done. The gadgets, the acting is par excellance and will keep you gasping for more in a few sequences. But its too lenghty. I was losing my patience in between. There are too many plots and twists and the movie keeps going on and on. The momentum that it gathers before the interval, is not maintained post it. The slick editing does help it though....

Finally , hats off to Heath Ledger. What an awesome performance. You would simply love his performance, be it the maniacal laugh to the one liners like "Why so serious?" "Lets put a smile on that face"... 3 cheers....

Go for it, because you will get more than you pay for,, but maybe slightly a little more than you would want or need or desire.....