Face-Off: Batman Begins vs. The Dark Knight

Batman must battle to maintain practicing everything he’s grown to believe when a clown comes along who is intent on ‘watching the world burn’ and bringing everything crashing down around the caped crusader. And damn does he just about succeed. There is character development here, but with a lot more players involved. Less time is focused on Batman/Bruce but all the other characters are so compelling that I went with it. Chaos is the theme here, and this movie delivers it in spades. I loved the elements from the graphic novel The Killing Joke that were brought to the table here.

We get two great elements to the characters of Bruce Wayne and Batman here, on the Bruce Wayne front it’s enthralling to see Bruce’s desire to cease being the caped crusader and move on, while at the same time developing this man crush on our white knight Harvey Dent. As far as Batman is concerned it was awesome seeing his anger build over the madness that Joker was up to and seeing it in his eyes that he was so close scene after scene to ‘breaking his one rule’…and seeing Bruce Wayne himself observing the Joker from afar as well and struggling to understand him. Alfred’s take on the crazy bastard made for an awesome scene.

What can be said about Heath Ledger as The Joker that has not already been said? The performance was brilliant, unhinged, and horrifying, Ledger disappeared and only The Joker remained. His activities were great to watch, and his speeches were uncomfortable in the respect that you sat there thinking to yourself that he has a point with some of this. The only thing I could say about Two Face is that I feel the same way about him as I did about Ra’s, I wanted more but when we got him he owned every scene he was in. I love the descent of a once decent man, makes for great drama.

Rachel Dawes sort of grated on my nerves in The Dark Knight, am I alone in thinking her bitchiness to Bruce for most of her screen time was a bit unjustified? Did we forget about the man saving your life from death by poison in the previous film? Their most tender moment was after Batsy saved her from her free fall thanks to the clown. Maggie Gyllenhaal did not do bad, and the character wasn’t a total bitch…but I think I would have been more emotionally invested if the character would have been written the same way she was in Begins and if Katie Holmes had returned. But to be fair, they had a lot more to get through this time around.

The Dark Knight has a 94% approval rating from critics and a worldwide gross of $1,001,921,825. That said, it has the distinct honor of being the 12th highest grossing film of all time. Critics went above and beyond to praise Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker and continued to praise the films gritty realistic setting. The rest of the cast received some love as well particularly Aaron Eckhart’s turn as Harvey Dent. TDK ranks 15 on Empire’s 500 Greatest Movies List for 2008. Roger Ebert nails my opinion perfectly by stating the film is a “haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy.”

Dark Knight is the Godfather II of comic-book films plain and simple. Further evolution of the Batman we grew to love in Begins and characters like Jim Gordon, to the portrayal of one of the greatest villains of all time. Everything was on a grander scale, and I was so enthralled the long run time always seems to fly by to me with every viewing. There is a tragedy surrounding this film with the death of Heath Ledger and some have said that added to the hype of the film and some say it wasn’t quite deserved, I don’t agree with that in the least and I found the battle between good and evil on steroids story this film carried makes The Dark Knight a genuine classic.