Dark Knight.. Dark Scene

I finally convince myself to pull myself off from work and all other non ending commitments or lack thereof to afford a moment of R&R. Movie was my choice after mulling it over for sometime. I log on to the Golden Village website to choose between the number of movies on show. Not much of a choice I must say but at the end, I choose Dark Knight.

There has been much hype about the movie before it was showned. Frankly I dont really enjoyed watching the previous Batman movies which to me was forgettable but the movie that was starred by Heath Ledger, his last movie before he died has received many good reviews and many claimed that it is the movie of the year. The Dark Knight will hit theaters with all the hoopla and fanboy avidity of the summer season's earlier movies based on comic books.

Seating at the cinema with a cup of coffee and popcorn, I can only conclude... heads up: a thunderbolt is about to rip into the blanket of bland we call summer movies. The Dark Knight is a potent provocation better then Batman begines. Feverish action? Check. Dazzling spectacle? Check. Devilish fun? Check. The movie has all these element in it.

The Dark Knight creates a place where good and evil — expected to do battle — decide instead to get it on and dance. The movie evolved with Batman, a.k.a. playboy Bruce Wayne was tired of being the white knight and unhappy with the label of being a vigilante. He decides then to leave the hero stuff to district attorney Harvey Dent and by doing so hopeful to stop the DA from moving in on Rachel Dawes, the lady love who is Batman's only hope for a normal life.

Everything gleams like sin in Gotham City and the bad guys seem jazzed by their evildoing. Take the Joker, who treats a stunningly staged bank robbery like his private video game with accomplices in Joker masks, blood spurting and only one winner. Ledger is mad-crazy-blazing brilliant as the Joker and his performance is miles apart from Jack Nicholson's. Ledger takes the role to the shadows, where even what's comic is hardly a relief. No plastic mask for Ledger; his face is caked with moldy makeup that highlights the red scar of a grin, the grungy hair and the yellowing teeth of a hound fresh out of hell. To the clown prince of crime, a knife is preferable to a gun, the better to "savor the moment."

In its rethinking and transcending of a schlock source, The Dark Knight is up there with David Cronenberg's 1986 version of The Fly. It turns pulp into dark poetry. Just as that movie found metaphors of cancer, AIDS and death in the story of a man devolving into an insect, so this one plumbs the nature of identity. Who are we? Has Bruce lost himself in the myth of the hero? Is his Batman persona a mission or an affliction? Can crusading Dent live down the nickname (Two-Face) some rancorous cops have pinned on him? Only the Joker seems unconflicted. He knows what he is: an "agent of chaos." Your worst nightmare.

Personally, having transfixed on my seat watching the movie throughout without even blinking an eye or falling asleep which many oast movies that I have watched is capable of doing, I can safely say that Dark Knight is worth the $10 ticket money. My only lingering thoughts after watching the show is on the character of Rachel Dawes. I remembered seeing her as the girl that captured the heart of Spiderman and now she captured the heart of Batman.. what is with her and men in spandex.