I’d
like to come out of the gates by admitting I’m not much of a Batman fan. However I do fancy many of the foes that he
squares off against and the Joker is an interesting character to say the least. In this case nothing is known of the Joker
including where he comes from, what he’s done previously in his life or why he
really got those scars. I opened my eyes
wide during the brief story Alfred shared in the movie about a man he met
earlier in his life that was similar to the Joker. I’ll get to that excerpt later though as I
would like to now state that I believe this movie was too elaborate for its own
good. Now it will take me time to explain
why I think it was but I trust you’ll understand what I’m talking about throughout
the review.
The
opening scene is a common bank heist but it’s done cleverly enough to avoid
complications. I like the clown masks
they wear to add a comedic spin on the robbery.
The clown robbers take turns killing each other to get a bigger share on
the loot throughout the robbery itself as advised by the Joker before the
actual heist. It’s a brilliant tactic to
use against greedy fools. The clown
thugs don’t know that the Joker is actually with them and he ends up killing
everyone in a clown mask. I do admire
the life threatening risks the Joker takes to see how far he can go leading
such a life. A man in the bank also
stands up to the clown robbers, specifically the hidden Joker; he fires off
some shotgun rounds killing one of them.
The Joker injures him and reveals his real face while escaping in a
school bus strategically crashed into the bank.
The getaway is slick and just in the realm of not totally unbelievable,
well I liked it anyway.
Harvey
Dent is the man with a plan to take down the mob. He has his life severely threatened in a
courtroom case; it’s a solid intro type scene for the character. Gordon approaches Dent in an offer to help
rid the mob from Gotham, which is just Chicago I do miss that imaginative Tim
Burton created Gotham but that’s for another review. Dent accuses Gordon of having paid off cops
in his private unit while Gordon denies working with the Batman. I tell you the entire “corrupted by mob” aspect of this movie goes to extreme situations that
are used for excuses on anything, it gets overdone. Dent wants to meet the Batman when Gordon
insists Batman is to be arrested on sight, nice lie there it’s not even
convincing ha-ha. Rachel Dawes is dating
Dent.
Enter the Joker – BEST scene
in this movie
The
best scene without a shadow of a doubt is when the Joker barges in on the “group therapy session” the mobsters are
having with Lau their “trusted”
accountant. It’s hilarious as the Joker
makes fun of them for being cowards and fearful of the Batman. Gambol is the one mobster who is not buying
into the Joker and wants him killed. The
Joker dispatches of his goon with a “magic
trick”. The sheer dominant display
of the Joker in this scene is powerful considering the company of high level
mobsters he’s with. He offers to kill
Batman for half of their money. He makes
note that Lau can be caught, even while in Hong Kong, saying Batman has no
boundaries. The Joker is crafty and
smart while ignoring Gambol calling him crazy.
The Joker denying that is perfectly performed by Ledger. The Joker has grenades inside his classic
purple jacket and warns the mobsters to think about his offer as he exits in
commanding fashion.
Batman,
Gordon and Dent all meet on the rooftop with the bat signal with a circling
camera shot, ahh I hate that! It’s so “amateurish” to circle around like that,
I loathe it and make it well known that I despise it. So, Batman decides to go to Hong Kong to
bring Lau back for his spankings. A lot
of people want to lay a hand on that accountant let me tell you, he’s a calculator
thief! Meanwhile the Joker takes another
one of those risks I like by faking his own death to gain access to Gambol’s
secure hideout. He didn’t appreciate
having a bounty on his head so he took the fight to Gambol. The Joker goes over his first story of, “Do you want to know how I got these scars?” What a great icebreaker for any
conversation! He kills Gambol and forces
some of his men to join him. Ruthless
maniac! The times seem to be riding high
for Dent, Gotham’s white knight, as he puts away a sizable portion of the
mobsters thanks to Lau’s cooperation.
How did Lau get back to Gotham you wonder, well Batman went all the way
to Hong Kong to bring his corrupt behind back.
It’s an incredible capture scene as Batman “flies” into action like a real winged terror; I’ll admit it’s cool
to see him gliding through the night skies in Hong Kong. He crashes directly onto the floor Lau is
hiding on and one of those silly action sequences occur as Batman never catches
a bullet and all the bad guys drop like flies.
The escape is neat as Batman catches a ride onto an airplane he set up
to carry him away with Lau. Now Batman
is taking life threatening Joker type risks which is interesting. The Joker was right, Batman has no
jurisdiction.
Dent is
warned by the mayor that if he slips up and is found to be corrupt in any way
then the mob will go free bringing crime right back. The mob eventually hires the Joker to kill
Batman and he begins right away. The
Joker kills one of the copycats and puts a video on the news for Batman to
reveal himself or people will die. Bruce
Wayne is now learning how demented the Joker is. A judge, commissioner and Dent are all
targets of the Joker. He blows up the
judge using the “corrupt cops” of
course. Money is the root of all evil
they say. The Joker has enough to bend
the will of almost any man at this point.
The commissioner dies drinking toxic liquor, that moment is a bit
sketchy. How do you not know it’s toxic
as its steaming like acid after it spills on the table. It’s part of the entire “too elaborate” deal I mentioned earlier. Did “corrupt
cops” again do this to their own commissioner? Are they that greedy or in such an impossible
situation to turn on him? It leaves far
too much to question if you ask me.
Bruce
Wayne throws a fundraiser for Dent on the night all these killings are
occurring, good timing Joker. Bruce
knocks Dent out and hides him as the Joker crashes the fundraiser party in
brute style with some of the “corrupt
cops” on site. The Joker truly shows
that he really is crazy as he says how beautiful Rachel is in front of
everyone. The camera is doing that
spinning thing again, ahh! Batman shows
up and a better action sequence takes place as the Joker gets in on the
action. Rachel eventually gets in the
grasp of the Joker and held out of a window.
I love the blind gunshot the Joker does to blast the window out. “Let
her go!” Batman yells as the Joker
releases her out the window saying, “Poor
choice in words.” Batman dives out
of this high rise building while catching Rachel and they land on a car
completely unscathed! Time-out, how are
they not dead from that height? Not even
an injury occurs for either of them, it’s one of the most questionable scenes
in the entire movie and gets brushed off as an everyday occurrence people
always walk away from. It’s like office
talk the next day in Gotham as people discuss how they jumped from a hundred
stories up so they could catch a cab!
Unless I missed something it’s awful indeed.
The
Joker reveals the mayor being his next target and the reeling good guys have no choice but to go all out to protect him.
It’s here that Alfred tells his story to Bruce Wayne about how he once
was trying to catch a man who simply wanted to watch the world burn. It comes as a surprise to Bruce as he keeps
assuming the Joker wants something. It’s
a better moment in the movie as you finally get some insight as to what the
Joker is all about. At a parade the
mayor has a public appearance which I don’t know why he would make clearly
knowing Joker has it out for him. With
plenty of people and guns everywhere why be foolish enough to leave protective
custody? Oh, because he knows all the
cops are corrupt anyway so why hid when that’s no safer than being out in the
open right? The Joker is in disguise as
an honor guard or something near the mayor without his trademark clown paint
on. He gets a shot off at the mayor that
Gordon takes in the back as he lunges to protect the mayor. The Joker escapes of course since the crowd
panics and causes a frenzy for him to slip away. It’s another wild risk by the Joker that I
like. Gordon for all intensive purposes
is now dead and Batman sulks heavily for it.
He wants to quit being Batman and has a pity party over it but Alfred
straightens him out enough by finishing the story he told earlier. They had to burn down the entire forest to
catch him which probably is the result the man in the story wanted.
Bruce
plans to turn himself into the police to meet the Joker’s demands. Dent opposes it strongly though. Rachel and Bruce have a heart to heart about
being together and Bruce tells her he is turning Gotham over to Dent. It’s a silly love angle that is really a
waste of time in the overall aspect. At
a press conference Dent tries to convince everyone to support Batman now to
catch the Joker then handle Batman later for his crimes. It ends with Dent saying that he is “the Batman” so he gets taken to
jail. The next scenes are car chase
material which you all know I love so much, detecting sarcasm yet? An armored truck, with a mysterious man
driving concealed head to toe, heads out with Dent in the back. It was broad daylight when Dent revealed he
was Batman then night when he was being taken away. I don’t know.
A fire
truck is on fire blocking the top side streets.
Let’s pause a moment there to wonder how the Joker pulled that off. He has corrupt firemen now in his
pocket? How nuts would a fireman have to
be to set fire to a rescue truck and place it blocking the road like that? The questions are mounting as the wheels are
falling off a bit here in the movie. The
armored truck detours underneath in the tunnel and the action boom boom
begins. It’s nothing spectacular as the
explosions go off and no lead character meets his demise. The chase goes back topside where Batman
catches up to the Joker in his semi-truck.
Batman now on a motorcycle does manage to create a nifty finale to the
chase by using cables to cause the semi-truck to flip straight over crashing to
a stop. How the Joker walks away from it
are unknown to me, I guess he was wearing his safety seat-belt. An epic Batman vs. Joker standoff occurs as
Batman avoids running over the Joker, why?
Finish him off, why let him survive?
He is just going to continue his sinister ways if left alive. It makes little sense, I always hate when
characters get put in situations to finally do something only to break off and
prolong the moment.
The
Joker excitedly walks up to Batman as he lay on the ground after his
crash. Surprise, Gordon busts the Joker
in a twist that he wasn’t dead! I don’t
understand this one either, how did he recover so quickly or did body armor
absorb the previous bullet? Questions continue
to mount don’t they? The Joker gets
jailed at Gordon’s special unit cell.
Rachel and Dent after the confusion and craziness of the night’s events
get taken by “corrupt cops” yet again
to unspecified locations. They are also
separated and no one knows they’re missing.
It becomes questioning time for the Joker as Batman begins his fearsome
interrogation. It’s an interesting scene
for the two as the Joker tries to explain to Batman how they are viewed as
freaks to the people living within the world of “rules”. I do believe the
Joker makes intelligent believable statements that get Batman furious. The Joker does take quite a beating that
seems unlikely, but he eventually tells where Dent and Rachel are in a tricky
type of way. He’s so devious it’s quite
admirable I’ll say.
Off to
the rescue Batman heads to rescue Rachel, his love. Gordon and his “corrupt crew” head for Dent or so they think. Joker switched where the two captives were
located to Batman, so bad! Dent and
Rachel are tied to chairs, at their respective locales, with enough gasoline to
blow up the entire buildings they’re in.
The Joker likes overkill. So
Batman shows up to see Dent as Dent screams he didn’t want to be rescued but
Rachel instead. Everyone really wants to
save her, huh? Gordon arrives to an
exploding building as Rachel perishes in the flames. Batman saves Dent as half of his FACE catches
fire. The Joker meanwhile talks some
trash to a cop in the interrogation room which is so bad the cop tries to beat
the crap out of the Joker. The Joker
apparently bests him while demanding his simple phone call he uses to detonate
a phone bomb inside the jail cell. He
escapes with Lau as the Joker takes charge of the situation.
A
weenie employee of Wayne enterprises, Coleman Reese, goes to the media as he
thinks he knows Batman’s true identity.
You’d sell out your own employer?
You’re so fired! The Joker
doesn’t like the idea of that as he wants Batman to turn himself in
willingly. He decides to threaten to
blow up a hospital unless Reese is killed, where does he get means to wire an
entire hospital with bombs? He seems to
be able to do such incredible tasks so easily all the time. It’d be neat to know exactly how he did it, a
“corrupt doctor” who takes a pay day
in exchange to terminate all his terminal patients? The questions build. Gordon sets out to rescue Reese from the
gathering mob of people trying to put a cap in him! The Joker pays a visit to Dent to turn him
into a reckless vengeful killing machine.
How the Joker makes it into an evacuating hospital is odd but he’s a
slippery fellow isn’t he? The Joker
takes another insane risk by letting a coin flip decide his fate as Dent gives
into the rage of blood. Dent uses his
double-sided coin and it would seem Joker got lucky as he survives. Was the gun loaded though?
Dent
goes after one of the mobsters and gets into a car with him. The mobster tells Dent who the corrupt cops
are and Dent flips his “fair trial”
coin. The mobster gets lucky but his
driver doesn’t as Dent shoots him in the back of the head as the car flips end
over end. Dent is fine though
somehow! How does he survive something
like that? He doesn’t even get
injured! He continues on killing more
people involved in the corruption.
Meanwhile the Joker blows up the hospital anyway and takes a bus of
hostages. Again how does he do
that? “Corrupt bus drivers”?? The
ridiculous events begin to pile up as the elaborate length of the movie forces
such occurrences.
We’re
finally approaching the end as Bruce Wayne unveils his sonar cell phone machine
to Lucious at Wayne tower. Lucious says,
“This is wrong.” A well performed and delivered line by Morgan
Freeman. Bruce is desperate to find the
Joker and invades the privacy of Gotham to do it. The Joker’s last attempt to cause chaos
involves two ships. For some reason one
of the ship’s is filled with prisoners!
We must save the criminals!
Gordon is afraid the Joker will use them to control the city but to
sacrifice a ship full of innocent people instead is uncanny. The idea is both ships are filled with
explosives, yawn of course, and one ship must blow up the other testing the
morale of the people on board. Let’s
take a vote! Batman tracks down the
Joker with the help of Lucious and determines the Joker using the hostages as
apparent clown masked thugs. Batman
along with a S.W.A.T. team go into the building for an iffy action sequence
that is dark and a bit difficult to follow overall. It’s too over thought for its own good.
The
ships refuse to blow each other up as Batman defeats the Joker in a less than
epic finale for them. Dent is all that’s
left as he captures Gordon’s family.
Gordon, Batman and Dent all go at it in the final, final finale. Dent dies as Batman knocks him off the side
of a ledge. He dies from that? He survived far worse earlier. Gordon and Batman decide to blame Batman for
all of Dent’s actions to keep him the pure hero of Gotham. The city now turns on Batman as he decides to
make the decisions that no one else can make as he becomes the dark knight.
I rag on
the movie but it’s still enjoyable in the end.
Heath Ledger gives the worthy performance to save this movie. If you like Batman you’ll gush your heart out
and pee your pants over this movie but I’m not a true BatFan. It’s a good sequel and what more could you
ask for right?
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