Batman, was always the dark, brave vigilante of the night that saved Gotham from terror.  Until I had seen “The Dark Knight,” the only Batman movie I had seen was with Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito, “Batman Returns,” from 1992.  While it was a great movie, it just felt more like a comic than actually capturing the true dark elements of Batman’s stories.  The movie opens up with two men in clown masks zip lining across a building.

One by one more men with similar masks are shown performing suspicious tasks.  Quickly, we see this is a bank robbery, planned by a man called the Joker.  As a task was completed, one masked man would kill another, until only one was left.  As the last man removes his mask, we see the familiar makeup of an infamous villain, the Joker.  This opening scene dumps you straight into the action, but also tells a story of how the Joker has one agenda: his own.

My memory of this scene was almost identical to the movie. I could vividly remember, the Joker’s removing his mask, frightening the manager even more. After which he places a  smoke grenade in the bank managers mouth, and says “I believe whatever doesn’t kill you, simply makes you, stranger,” which is followed with his evil laugh.  This cold opening is so simple, yet it plays such an important role in telling the story.

As the movie develops, we see that the Joker has one true intention, creating chaos at a time when law and order was perfectly in place. At this same time, Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent make their first meeting, where Harvey makes one of the most iconic statements in the film, “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villian.”  It foreshadows his own future fate, as he would soon become a greater threat to Batman than the Joker.  Batman slowly becomes viewed as an outlaw as the Joker asks for one thing, for Batman to reveal his identity to the world.  If not, the Joker would kill a person each day.  The movie is extremely unconventional for its genre.  Most super hero movies, such as Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, focused on heroism and saving the day. 

However, it felt like nothing bad could go wrong in these two films like no character important to the film could get hurt or do harm. This is reassured when Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes, Bruce Wayne’s ex-girlfriend, are tied down to barrels of oil rigged to explode after being captured by the Joker.   Ultimately,  she is killed, but fortunately, Batman reached Harvey Dent just in time, saving him from death, where he suffered serious burns on his face.

Along with a lack of dark elements, those movies felt like there was a fine line between good and evil. In the Dark Knight, it never felt like a battle of good and evil.  It was more of a battle between order and chaos.   In fact, Harvey Dent is a man of order, as the cities DA.  However, the Joker, knowing Harvey could not live without Rachel, turning him in to a chaotic killer. Two-Face Harvey Dent takes his role as a villain giving everybody he deemed responsible for the death of his girlfriend a 50/50 chance of life or death by flipping a coin, killing all those that landed burnt half up.  In the end, as he threatens to kill Detective Gordon’s family, Batman is forced to kill Harvey Dent, where he takes the blame for all his wrongdoings.  Creating Two-Face was just one of his many chaotic schemes in hopes of turning Gotham into a criminal state.

Over the last 10 years, the reviewers of this movie and I can agree on the fact that this is one of the greatest movies ever made.  Christopher Nolan’s great directing, Han’s Zimmer’s suspenseful orchestra, and a series of wonderful actors make for a perfect combination of action and thrill.  I have seen this movie around 30 times or more and i enjoy it the same every time.  This movie is a timeless classic that stands out among all other superhero movies.