film- The Dark Knight

Title: The Dark Knight
Director/creator: Christopher Nolan
Cultural perspective: American
Gender of creator/ perspective: male

In this, the latest instalment of the Batman series, Bruce Wayne and his vigilante shaddow the Batman, continue the seemingly endless effort to bring peace and order to Gotham and reign in the plague of crime that unfortunately but inevitably has infected the city, aided by Lieutenant James Gordon and recently selected District Attorney Harvey Dent. But a new and threatening character is stalking the streets. The Dark Knight faces a rising criminal known only as The Joker, whose haunting grin, psychopathic laughter, and ruthless morality makes him the most dangerous enemy he has ever come across. It becomes an agenda to Batman to stop the mysterious Joker by any means necessary, knowing that he is dealing with something that he has never seen before, getting himself caught up in The Joker's lethal game where the rules are sketchy and the stakes are high.

The main characters in this film were Batman/ Bruce Wayne, The Joker, Lieutenant James Gordon, District Attorney Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes (Bruce Wayne's previous love interest). These characters worked well together in the film and made for an interesting and exciting storyline. I think strong performances were made by all in this film (although not including Maggie Gyllenhaal who plays Rachel, for some reason I can’t quite describe this actress just annoys me, I thought she had a seemingly lacklustre take on this character and i think someone else could have done a better job on playing this role)

my favourite character would without a doubt be The Joker played by Heath Ledger. Heath's performance in this film absolutely blew me away, making the character of The Joker come alive, totally taking on the persona of a dark and sinister psychopathic mastermind criminal with none of the inhibitions or restrictions of normal society. I think his performance was very convincing and believable right down to his strange mannerism of always licking his scarred and mangled lips with a crazed yet amused look in his eye. The deliverance of lines was startlingly demented further outlining the wild and insane, yet still charismatic personality of this complex and intense character. my favourite line from the Joker was "whatever doesn’t kill you simply makes you....stranger.." because he has personalised the clichéd phrase of "whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger" and I think it fits the character well because he seems to thrive on strangeness, peculiarity and the risk of danger. I think Heath Ledger more than deserved his Oscar for "best performance by an actor in a supporting role" for this movie.

i would recommend this movie to anyone who is a fan of action movies, Batman, and insanely good performances. this was so much more than a comic book film, The Dark Knight truly delivers with drama, action, romance, horror, dark humour and the study of a psychopathic killer wrapped up in a detective-like story.