HARRY WHITFIELD

The Dark Knight was released four years previous to The Dark Knight Rises and is considered by most film critics to be one of the best films of the 2000s and one of the best superhero films ever, the film received highly positive reviews and set numerous records during it time in theatres. It had a revenue of over $1 billion worldwide.

 

Secondly, I believe the Dark Knight was extremely successful due to the acting; as I mentioned in my review of the Dark Knight Rises, Nolan chooses the perfect actors. Heath Ledger epitomizes this in my opinion. Ledger lived in a single hotel room a month before the film was scheduled to begin shooting in order to really formulate and create the character of the joker. He kept a diary of the joker's thoughts and ensured that his character would bring something different to the Batman franchise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alongside this, one famous scene that everyone who has seen the film will remember is the hospital scene. In this scene the joker has threatened to blow up a hospital in Gotham. He leaves the hospital after finding out that the target he wanted killed has survived – therefore he blows up the hospital. However, the button that Nolan has asked Ledger to press in order to set off the explosion doesn’t work, Ledger improvises and instead turns the whole affair of blowing up the hospital into a comical situation. This is because he seemingly gives up with the whole building exploding and instead as he is looking around rather confused, the explosion all of a sudden goes off and with this, Ledger leaves the scene on a school bus.

 

With all thriller movies, Nolan includes the battle between two characters. Nonetheless, he opts to go the further mile and adds in a third character who becomes involved in the plot. Harvey Dent has half of his face burnt off during the film and eventually decides to take revenge on Batman choosing to save him rather than his lover Rachael. The Joker ensures that Dent has the mindset that he wants to kill Batman, although, in some of the final scenes of the film, Dent captures Gordon’s son and holds him hostage, Batman saves the day by preventing Gordon’s son’s death and also stops Harvey Dent once and for all.

 

Overall, I would thoroughly recommend this film to anyone who is interested in the thriller genre because it really captures what a great thriller film should look like.