Dark Knight

A bunch of friends and I went to watch the Dark Knight last night. Although I lived closest to the cinema, I ended up arriving the earliest, a full 30 minutes before the show began. The cinema was packed full and we were lucky to get the seats that we managed to get.

Right after they had finished showing the trailers and we were eager to get going with the film, the lights in the cinema came on and the screen turned off. Then, a bunch of red lights turned on as well and a calm voice came over the sound system telling us that an “incident had arisen”, which required us to vacate the whole cinema. So, people began filing out using the nearest emergency exits.

At this point, I thought that the Joker might make an appearance in the cinema. Maybe the cinema had some extra plans to make this movie a memorable experience. We had even seen some of the staff members made up as clowns earlier. So, there was a basis for this thought. Maybe some of the staff would invade at that point and put up an act in front or something.

Then, a member of the cinema staff came in to tell us that it was a false alarm. So, everyone quickly returned to their seats while the staff members went to chase down those who had already left via the emergency exits. We waited for about 10 minutes for them to fill up the cinema again. Then, they restarted the film from where it stopped. And the show began.

Some things that I thought were interesting about the show. Neither the opening credits nor the end credits mentioned “Batman” anywhere. The opening credits merely showed a DC Comics and Warner Bros intro and the symbol of the Bat. This took all of about 60 seconds and the show started. It was only during the end credits that “The Dark Knight” appeared, as part of a monologue by Jim Gordon.

As for the show, I have to say that I didn’t realise that 3 hours had passed. That is good. It shows that the film kept me at the edge of my seat throughout. Good thing was that the whole cinema was silent as well. Although some friends complained that the first half was a bit slow, I felt that it was important as it had to introduce a whole bunch of new characters and also set the tone of how desperate the situation in Gotham had become.

It is a little unfortunate that Heath Ledger has passed away. His portrayal of The Joker was awesome and I think that anyone else who tries to fill his shoes is just going to suck. I don’t know how anyone could possibly better his performance, which made me feel like slapping him and afraid of him at the same time. I seriously think that they should award him a posthumous Oscar for it. For once, the villain carried the whole show through, instead of the hero. Batman felt like a supporting role, compared to The Joker.

One of the interesting moments in the show was when the Prisoner’s Dilemma made an appearance. That was an interesting 15 minutes of the show. I also loved the way that they portrayed Batman’s fall from grace and it sets the tone for the rest of the franchise. Now everyone can understand why Batman behaves the way that he does, seemingly without morals.

Maggie Gyllenhaal was also a much better Rachel Dawes than Katie Holmes was. Although I had never thought that Maggie was that hot, her first few minutes on screen were very much so.

At one point in the movie, they showed a piece of technology marvel that Fox had used in Hong Kong. And my engineering brain immediately began to think about how I might possibly build such a thing using the technology today. This is one of the reasons that I like the new Batman franchise. All the gadgets and toys used are very “realistic” and can actually be built using standard technology today.

Anyway, I think that I’ve talked enough about Batman. Go watch it! I might go watch it again in a couple of weeks time.