The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005, 2008, 2012) Mega Movie Review

The time has finally come for me to review what I consider to be the three greatest superhero movies of all time, which are also three of my all-time favorite movies, period: Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises, which have come to be known collectively as The Dark Knight Trilogy. These three movies form such a cohesive whole as a series and are so close together in quality that it is appropriate, I think, to review them all in one massive review. Plus, that lets me review two extra superhero movies down the line. So without further ado, let’s take a look at the first masterpiece in this trilogy.

Batman Begins (2005)

4 stars out of 4

Batman Begins can be considered the first real superhero movie reboot, restarting the Batman franchise eight years after the travesty that was Batman and Robin (the fourth movie in the Burton-Schumacher Batman series). This movie went where no live action Batman movie had gone before by telling the origin story of Batman in what is, in my opinion, still the best superhero origin story ever told on the big screen. By being set in a grounded, realistic world and taking its time with the origin, showing Bruce Wayne gradually training himself and obtaining the necessary equipment to become Batman and not showing the full Batman suit until nearly halfway through the movie, Batman Begins makes you feel almost like there could be a real Batman in the real world, and if there was, this is what he would be like. The movie is directed by acclaimed director Christopher Nolan, who here uses a similar nonlinear storytelling approach as he used in Following and Memento, except neither to as great an extent nor in as deliberately confusing a manner as in those films. The casting in this film, like the direction, is brilliant. Christian Bale is, in my opinion, the best live action Batman to date, portraying the dual identity of Bruce Wayne and Batman in a more complex, nuanced way than any actor before him had. Legendary veteran actors Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman lend the right dose of gravitas to the roles of mentor figures Alfred the butler and Lucius Fox, respectfully. Gary Oldman is perfectly cast as future police commissioner James Gordon, portraying a more proactive, true to the comics version of the character than had been seen in previous movies. Liam Neeson, possibly my favorite actor of all time, is brilliant as Bruce Wayne’s mentor Ducard, who hides a dark secret. The underrated actor Cillian Murphy is wonderfully creepy as the villainous Scarecrow, a role he would reprise in cameos in the next two movies.

The Dark Knight (2008)

4 stars out of 4

The Dark Knight is doubtlessly the most successful and universally praised film in this trilogy. It takes the dark, gritty, realistic tone of Batman Begins to the next level, as well as the stakes, the scale, and the scope. The Dark Knightshowcases the brilliant, iconic, Oscar-winning performance of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker. Ledger’s Joker is dark, sadistic, and frightening, but somehow still manages the Joker’s trademark sense of humor in what is easily the greatest on-screen portrayal of Batman’s arch-nemesis. This movie added another great cast member to this trilogy in Aaron Eckhart’s portrayal of District Attorney Harvey Dent, staunch ally of Batman and Gordon who is tragically destined to become the villainous Two-Face. Eckhart portrays Dent’s fall from grace brilliantly and sympathetically, and in many ways, this movie is really the story of Harvey Dent and his tragic fall from grace. The Dark Knight is a dark, thought-provoking exploration of what it means to be a hero and what a hero must do to defeat evil.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

4 stars out of 4

In my opinion, The Dark Knight Rises managed the nearly impossible task of being an ending to this brilliant trilogy worthy of the previous two installments. In fact, it’s really the first movie to be the definitive ending to a superhero movie series, with no intention whatsoever of sequels. The Dark Knight Rises seamlessly blends the influence of four books for its story: the Batman comic book stories The Dark Knight Returns, Knightfall, and No Man’s Land, and strangely enough, Charles Dickens’s masterpiece A Tale of Two Cities. Tonally, The Dark Knight Rises feels like a combination of the previous two movies, with The Dark Knight‘s high stakes and darkness and Batman Begins‘s somewhat lower level of realism. Tom Hardy is brilliantly menacing as the brutally tough but intelligent Bane, and Anne Hathaway is the perfect Catwoman, exploring her character’s tendencies to be both an enemy and later an ally of Batman. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard round out the cast as police officer John Blake and socialite Miranda Tate, respectively, two characters who are seemingly new to the Batman mythos.

Overall, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises are not just great superhero films, but great films, period. They are certainly my three favorite superhero movies, but I could never rank them against each other. They are all equally brilliant, well-crafted, dark, thought-provoking movies that take the superhero genre to the next level.