Film review
The Dark Knight
Rating 5/5
THE Joker, as played by late Australian actor Heath Ledger, may well have become the most haunting villain in Hollywood history thanks to The Dark Knight.
Ledger, in his final role before his death, provides a scary and crooked image of a comic book villain who may once have been seen as comic relief in previous cartoon interpretations of the Batman universe.
In The Dark Knight, The Joker is a cruel, sadistic, and evil, being stripped of identity to be portrayed as an unpredictable, psychotic serial killer with pleasure his only motivation for such acts.
The Dark Knight is the follow-up to the 2006 film Batman Begins, which painted a believable picture of how multimillionaire Bruce Wayne became the caped crusader.
In the sequel, Gotham City’s crooks have entered a fragile alliance to protect their dirty money from Batman, who is fighting to rid the city of criminal scum.
They call upon The Joker to help them, but in doing so they unleash a madman whose vile acts usher in a new wave of crime.
The film is jam-packed with action sequences, but the star of the show is The Joker.
Ledger’s interpretation of The Joker will be remembered alongside other film baddies, such as Star Wars’ Darth Vader and The Matrix’s Agent Smith.
Christian Bale returns as Batman and Bruce Wayne, and the quality of his performance proves why he is the best man for the job.
Aaron Eckhart plays Harvey Dent, a district attorney with ambitions of cleaning up Gotham, no matter how many death threats he receives.
The film runs for about two and a half hours and never misses a beat.
And while it naturally leaves the door open to another film, The Dark Knight ties together the loose ends that it needs to in order to become a complete film.
