The Review, Part 2

Is it possible that a movie can get better the more you see it? Sure. Fight Club proved it. Running Scared proved it. The Dark Knight prved it for me tonight.

I saw it again. Since I saw the movie the first time, 5 days ago, it hasn't left me. It's been bouncing around inside my mind, interrupting my thoughts... I can't quite seem to get over the hump where the movie stops being AMAZING and just starts being another great movie. It's not coming. The reason for that, I think, is just that the movie is AMAZING.

Even though I'd seen it, even though I knew what was going to happen, I was drawn into the movie. The Joker pulled me in and I couldn't even bring myself to blink. The credits rolled, and I was shaking... trembling. It was like I took my first breath in two and a half hours.

This movie does so much right. The acting, the score (I don't think I devoted enough space to it before... it is simply amazing, everything about the score fits so perfectly with what happens on the screen... it's intense, it's driving, and the Joker's "theme" drags you to the edge of your seat every time you hear it), the script, the directing, everything is perfect.

** Ahem... SPOILER ALERT!!! **

It struck me as I watched it for the second time how symbolic some of the things that happed in the movie are. Take, for example, the end. Harvey Dent falls to his death. It seems so obvious when you say it that way, but it's surprising to me how many people aren't picking up on that. Harvey falls. Batman falls right after him. Then Gordon comes down as well. That is symbolic of what The Joker was doing throughout the movie. He brought the champions of Gotham down.

"Madness, as you know, is like gravity. All you need is a little push!"

How perfect is that? Brilliant!

A few posts ago, I said that Running Scared was the kind of movie that makes every movie you see for the next month seem stupid. Well, this movie is the kind of movie that will make anything you've ever seen before, and most likely anything you will ever see again look stupid. Why is that? It's certainly not the explosions and the knives and guns. It's not the gadgets. It's the psychology. I can't stress that enough. Without the psychology that you get from the mind games between Batman, Dent, and Gordon versus the Joker, you really have a hollow shell of a movie. Comparing this to other movies, you have the movies that are all action, no substance, then there are the ones that are action with a side of substance, and of course, you have the substance without anything else. That's like cake with NO frosting, and how much fun is that really? This movie is something that I've never seen before: Action that is filled with and enhanced by substance. Utterly amazing.

Despite these words of praise, I still cannot do it justice. I feel inadequate writing this.

However, after 5 days worth of this movie consuming my thoughts, and after watching the movie for the second time, I feel safe saying that The Dark Knight has dethroned Requiem for a Dream. It is, quite simply, the best movie I've ever seen.

"They're only as good as the world allows them to be."