The Dark Knight (2008)

When Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent launch an assault on the mob, they let the clown out of the box, the Joker, bent on turning Gotham on itself and bringing any heroes down to his level.

Director:

Christopher Nolan

Writers:

Jonathan Nolan (screenplay), Christopher Nolan (screenplay),

Stars:

Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart

Top 250 #6 | Won 2 Oscars. Another 93 wins & 68 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Christian Bale	...	Bruce Wayne
Heath Ledger	...	Joker
Aaron Eckhart	...	Harvey Dent
Michael Caine	...	Alfred
Maggie Gyllenhaal	...	Rachel
Gary Oldman	...	Gordon
Morgan Freeman	...	Lucius Fox
Monique Gabriela Curnen	...	Ramirez
Ron Dean	...	Wuertz
Cillian Murphy	...	Scarecrow
Chin Han	...	Lau
Nestor Carbonell	...	Mayor
Eric Roberts	...	Maroni
Ritchie Coster	...	Chechen
Anthony Michael Hall	...	Mike Engel

Storyline

Batman raises the stakes in his war on crime. With the help of Lieutenant Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to dismantle the remaining criminal organizations that plague the city streets. The partnership proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a reign of chaos unleashed by a rising criminal mastermind known to the terrified citizens of Gotham as The Joker.

---

Plot Keywords:

gotham | criminal | vigilante | criminal mastermind | district attorney | 

---

Taglines:

Welcome to a world without rules.

---

Genres:

Action | Crime | Drama | Thriller

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and some menace

Details

Official Sites:

Citizens for Batman City of Gotham Police Department

Country:

USA UK

Language:

English Mandarin

Release Date:

18 July 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

Batman Begins 2

Filming Locations:

Times Square, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

Box Office

Budget:

$185,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£11,191,824 (UK) (25 July 2008)

Gross:

$533,316,061 (USA) (27 February 2009)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures, Syncopy

Technical Specs

Runtime:

152 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital SDDS DTS

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Michael Caine also appeared in Quicksand, opposite previous Batman Michael Keaton; Blood and Wine, opposite previous Joker Jack Nicholson; and The Fourth Protocol, opposite previous Alfred Michael Gough.

---

Goofs

In the scene where Bruce Wayne is riding his motorcycle underneath an 'L' line while racing to the apartment overlooking Commissioner Loeb's funeral, he passes a modern Volkswagen New Beetle. The sound of the car is that of an old, 4-cylinder boxer air-cooled beetle, and not the sound of a Volkswagen New Beetle.

---

Quotes

[first lines]
Grumpy: [with Chuckles, picks up Bozo on the street] Three of a kind, let's do this!
Chuckles: Huh, that's it? Three guys?
Grumpy: Plus two guys on the roof. Every guy gets a share. Five shares is plenty.
Chuckles: *Six* shares. Don't forget the guy who planned the job.
Grumpy: He thinks he can sit it out and still take a slice? I know why they call him "The Joker".
Happy: [up on the roof, breaking open the alarm box with Dopey] So why do they call him "the Joker"?
Dopey: I hear he wears makeup.
Happy: Makeup?
Happy: Yeah, to scare people. You know, war ...
[...]

---

Crazy Credits

Christian Bale is credited with playing "Bruce Wayne" but not "Batman" in the closing credits.

---

Connections

Referenced in Greek: The Dork Knight (2009)

---

Soundtracks

"Andante from String Quartet in a minor D. 804, 'Rosamunde'"
(1824) (uncredited)
Written by Franz Schubert

User Reviews

The Batman of our dreams! So much more than a comic book movie

I got to see The Dark Knight on Wednesday night, the reason though why I'm writing this movie comment this late is because I didn't wanna just jump and say this movie was awesome, I wanted to think it through, still today, I can't stop thinking about this movie! The Dark Knight lives up to it's hype and goes beyond it, this is the Batman movie that goes where no other Batman movie has gone before. It gave us a real sold story, we are finally told why the villains are the way they are, how all the injustice in the world can get underneath Batman's skin, how you have to believe that people still have faith in good on Earth. Heath Ledger, I absolutely loved Jack Nicolson's performance in the 1989 film, when I first read that Heath was signed onto The Dark Knight, I was like "What are they, kidding?", once you see The Dark Knight... Heath was incredible! I'm not going to compare Jack and Heath's performance, because they were two different versions of the Joker, but Heath's Joker was definitely the more scary and intense of the two nominations. You didn't know what he was going to do next, he was so crazy, he was also so charismatic to the point where you could relate to his character, and the worst part is not only that he's crazy, he's driving Gotham crazy and treating everyone like little puppets on strings that he can control, and guess what, he is doing it so well with a smile on his face.

This was so much more than a Batman film, this was so much more than a comic book film, The Dark Knight truly delivers with drama, action, romance, horror, dark humor, the study of a psychopathic killer, a detective story. The force behind this epic movie is Christopher Nolan, who's previous film, Batman Begins, didn't really thrill me, but his incredible film making is truly shown in The Dark Knight, the shots that he got of Gotham City were absolutely fantastic and made you feel part of the city, part of the Batman story. One of the things that I absolutely loved about The Dark Knight is that normally with a comic book movie, you know it's not real, people don't dress up in costumes, and save the day, villains don't name themselves crazy names and dress in make up or crazy costumes, but The Dark Knight actually makes it seem incredibly real, like it could happen.

Bruce Wayne is still learning how to be in his double life of Batman and himself, he has lost Rachel to the new district attorney, Harvey Dent, he's inspiring others who are dressing up as Batman and are trying to take on the villains of the city themselves. But things are much worse when the Joker waltzes into town, and he's going to bring Hell upon Gotham City. Constantly playing with Gotham's mind and trying to get Batman to reveal himself, Batman has never dealt with such a psychopathic genius before. The Joker has named himself as the "Classy Villain that Gotham needs", he also has brought a new thought into Batman's head of them actually being more alike than different, that Batman completes him, the Joker would be nothing without him. But Batman is relying on Harvey Dent, who is Gotham's "White Knight" trying to put all of Gotham's scum in jail. But when the Joker plays Batman and Commissioner Gordon, Harvey and Rachel find themselves in very horrific position and Harvey must discover if he will die a hero or live long enough to become a villain.

All the performances are dead on in this movie, now everyone's going crazy over Heath Ledger's performance, but one performance I would also love to credit is Aaron Eckhart who plays Harvey Dent/Two Face, his performance was just as great as Heath's and made Two Face a human villain. You could understand his hatred and vengeance on what happened to him and why he became Two Face. I know that everyone is saying this but I truly mean when I say this is one of the best movies I have seen in a very long time. We had some great movies these past few years, but I think The Dark Knight is seriously something special, but I don't wanna build it up too much since some people go to the theater expecting my words to be the same as your own. In my opinion though this is not a great movie, I can't come up with a word describe how incredibly powerful this movie was, to be honest I would go above a 10 rating if I could; this is the Batman film that we have been waiting for. I've seen it twice in one weekend, I'm going to see it three times this upcoming week, I don't mind one bit. I can't wait for the sequel and I would just like to say RIP to Heath, wish he could have seen his breath taking performance as The Joker.

10/10