The Dark Knight (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]
by Christopher Nolan
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Blu-ray details
Actor: Aaron Eckhart, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael CaineDirector: Christopher Nolan
Brand: DC Comics
Audio: English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.40:1
Running Time: 152 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: 2008-12-09
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Model: 1000026387
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- Condition: New
- Format: Blu-ray
- AC-3; Color; Dolby; Widescreen
Blu-ray Reviews of The Dark Knight (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]
Blu-ray Review: The Best Movie of 2008 Looks Great on Blu-ray
Summary: 5 Stars
THE MOVIE
I'm going to be keeping this spoiler-free, so don't be afraid to keep reading. I hate it when reviewers give away key plot details, it really hurts the movie experience. Speaking of which: you need to see this movie in IMAX if it all possible (they're doing a re-release in January 2009). It's worth the extra few bucks, trust me. Christopher Nolan shot at least 6 scenes in the movie using IMAX cameras, and it shows.
In case you've been living under a rock: this movie is a direct sequel to Batman Begins and is not at all related to the prior Batman films. The main premise is that the organized crime in Gotham, under siege from Batman, turn to The Joker for help and, naturally, chaos ensues. This movie is hands-down the best comic book movie ever made. It took my high expectations and just shattered them. This movie doesn't just blow away Iron Man, it really outshines Batman Begins in its dialogue, pacing, and action scenes. This is Batman the way it was meant to be experienced and really combines the elements that make Batman my favorite comic book/animated series.
There's so much to love about this movie that I'm not sure where I should start. I think I'll go with the acting: Heath Ledger steals the show as Joker among an already incredible cast. He doesn't just portray the Joker, but for 2 and a half hours he is the Joker. I can't think of the last time I saw an actor nail a role so well that I couldn't even believe it was them in the role. I'm not saying I thought he was a bad actor before, but just the voice and makeup and everything transforms him into a completely different person. He's so good that I'm sure Jack Nicholson will see it and say, "Wow, he was good!" If you go to this movie for no other reason it should be to see Ledger in his best role ever. It's so sad to know that he can't come back in a future Batman film or any film at all. If you ever doubted his abilities as an actor, this movie will embarrass you.
The rest of the cast doesn't disappoint either. Christian Bale is an even better Bruce Wayne than before and really takes on a darker, grittier Batman. This movie is really dark, and Bale doesn't shy away from this. Michael Caine IS, well, Alfred. He was in the first movie and he is here also; he defines what it means to be Alfred. If you've seen the first one (which you really should before walking into this one, but don't absolutely have to) then you know what to expect here. Maggie Gyllenhaal really steals Rachel Dawes from Katie Holmes because it will amaze you that Katie Holmes ever could have been Rachel Dawes. I always felt that Gyllenhaal was underrated and it shows in this film. Aaron Eckhart was the perfect man to play Harvey Dent. The concept of a DA with a passion for justice is not lost on Eckhart. He starts off as being not bad and then progressively just gets deeper and deeper into the role. Morgan Freeman's character is given more screen time in this one and while I would've loved to have seen his character fleshed out a little more I appreciate their time restrictions also.
Speaking of which: the worst thing you can drudge up about this movie is how dense it is. It's 2 and a half hours long and a lot happens, but I feel like it's paced well enough so that you'll always want to know what happens next and you can't possibly be bored. You probably will laugh, cry, and jump in your seat (or squirm) during this movie, it's just that powerful. I love the dark humor because I love dark humor in general, and the delivery is always impeccable. The dialogue in this movie is decidedly more mature when compared to its predecessor, which I think is saying a lot (probably because David Goyer was not a part of writing this one, just in conceiving it). Getting back to my point though: there are several plots throughout this movie that do all tie together but can get confusing if you don't pay attention. Of course, I just look at this as giving more re-watch value to the film. There's so many little details to appreciate and the cinematography is so spot-on that you can't help but want to watch certain scenes again and again. The special effects are never too heavy and are always just welcome inclusions.
This movie should not be seen by small children. Seriously, if you're under 14 then you have no business seeing this movie. It's not curse words or violence (though there's not much cursing and there's absolutely no nudity), but rather the themes that this movie revolves around. They're dark, complicated, and involve a lot of moral gray area. Besides, the Joker would probably seriously creep out anyone that young (I'd be surprise if he didn't give some adults bad dreams). The haunting imagery in this movie will likely stick with you, but you have to appreciate the fact that these characters are likely to stick with you. You really care about them and feel involved in their lives.
I give this movie an A+ with my highest recommendation for you to run out and see it right now. Please, go see it in IMAX if you can, and Blu-ray if you can't. If you are above the age of 16 and you do not see this movie then something is wrong with you. Yes, it's that good.
THE BLU-RAY SET
Does it look every bit as good on Blu-ray as it did on the big screen? For the most part, yes. I think that when you watch a movie with as dark as palette as this one the scenes with a lot of black don't look as good as you may remember on the big screen. The IMAX scenes are pretty much breathtaking. I was a little disappointed with how they enforced the IMAX aspect ratio: the IMAX shots will take up your whole screen whereas the rest of the movie will have black bars at the top and bottom. Since my other Blu-ray movies don't do that, it makes me feel a little cheated. Still, they're fairly thin bars and the quality is pretty amazing for the rest of the movie also. The only flaws you're really going to find in the other scenes in the movie are just noise in the backgrounds occasionally, but you pretty much have to walk right up to your TV (which I hope is HD if you buy this on Blu-ray) to notice this noise. The edges are razor sharp all around and I can't recall seeing any artifacts. I think it doesn't look as good as Wall-E simply because the colors in the movie itself aren't as vivid, but they're definitely crystal clear and ensure that you won't miss a single detail in a single frame. So don't buy too much into what some critics are saying, I still think it's worth your money video quality-wise (I can't speak for the DVD version though because I haven't seen it). The sound is even better though. Even on my simulated surround sound, it never comes close to disappointing. It gives you that true movie theater experience with explosions you can almost smell and gunfire that's almost too realistic. The score shines pretty well also.
Now for the weakest part of this set, if you can even call it that: the extras. I didn't try out the digital copy, but I did try out BD Live and perused the other extras on both discs. The BD Live content is nothing particularly exciting. You can create and watch video commentary, which I think is kind of a gimmicky. You can also do live chats. The other main feature is the ability to watch movie trailers and other video content that should've been on the disc but wasn't because it wasn't good enough. There were a couple of videos that I was kind of peeved didn't make it on the Blu-ray because they were actually interesting, but the others were animated shorts that added audio to frames of a comic book that was created for the movies. I only watched a couple, and they were terrible. The artwork was just fine, but the dialogue did not sound like Batman at all (I mean the writing, not the voice acting). What's worse about this stuff is that the video size is only a quarter of your screen, are lacking in quality, and buffer terribly. It's best to start playing one, pause it immediately, and then go make yourself hot cocoa while it buffers the video so that you can actually watch it continuously. My cable Internet isn't the bad, but I can stream videos just fine on my laptop. I would've liked to have seen a trivia game or something else on BD Live.
The other features are pretty good though. There's no commentary track, which I didn't mind because I rarely listen to those, but you can trigger featurettes at various parts of the movie when you see the appropriate icon, or watch them all entirely outside of the movie. There's about 90 minutes worth of that stuff, and they're pretty fascinating overall. I had never seen an IMAX camera before watching the featurette on it, and it's incredible to imagine how they filmed any action on that thing. On disc 2 you'll find a couple of documentaries that no one has seemed to point out originally aired on the History Channel in the weeks leading up to the release of The Dark Knight: Batman Tech and Batman Unmasked. So when you read reviewers talk about how strange it was that neither of these documentaries include non-trailer scenes from The Dark Knight and only scenes from Batman Begins, you can be a smarty pants and correct them. I thought that they were pretty well-done and great ways to lend another level of realism to this character and world on top of what the movie has to blot out the abominations of Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. I especially liked the Unmasked one, a psychological analysis of Batman, because part of what I always liked about him was how dark and gritty and real he would always feel and that he was even thrown into Arkham himself once. There are also some episodes of a Gotham news program that were movie cheesy, but still useful addition in that they help ground the film in what feels like reality. They're almost like deleted scenes, in a way. The other features you have is a smattering of photographs and concept art, and all the trailers and TV spots, which I always love to have to watch long after a movie was released and I'm always bothered when DVDs don't include them. The concept art is pretty awesome, and I really wish that had taken the initiative to let you view them picture-in-picture with the film as an optional layer.
Overall, this is definitely something worth buying. Even though it's not a monstrous amalgamation of special features, it's a pretty healthy amount that will take even longer than the movie itself to go through, and the quality of everything (besides the BD Live content) was excellent.
ADDENDUM: LIVE CHAT EVENT
I participated in the live chat event with director Christopher Nolan on December 18 and it was awesome! It was text only, not video. At first I was disappointed, but actually text chat lets you enjoy the movie fully and only tune in to what Nolan is saying when/if you want. It's actually a text box at the top of the screen that's readable without being too big and has a somewhat transparent background so that you can see whatever part of the movie it covers. You ask questions on the WB BD Live site (you had to be logged in, so only people in the chat could ask questions), and Nolan (or perhaps a third-party) goes through and asks as many of the best as quickly as possibly.
Sometimes, he picked ones that I thought were kind of dumb or already answered in other features on the disc, but there were a lot of insightful questions answered about the casting, nuances of the story, origins and inspirations, etc. I didn't get any of mine answered, unfortunately, but the event could only support 100,000 people and with 600,000 copies sold on the first day alone (I imagine a significant number from pre-orders), I imagine a number of people were excited about this event a week afterwards.
I don't know how often they're going to be doing this, but it was cool. It was the only BD Live feature that I thought was creative and on par with some of the stuff Disney is trying out. I'd love to see them do more live events with actors from the film or even Batman comic experts.
Description of The Dark Knight (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]
The follow-up to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight reunites director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale, who reprises the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne in his continuing war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good. The triumvirate proves effective, but soon find themselves prey to a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker, who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces Batman closer to crossing the fine line between hero and vigilante. Heath Ledger stars as archvillain The Joker, and Aaron Eckhart plays Dent. Maggie Gyllenhaal joins the cast as Rachel Dawes. Returning from Batman Begins are Gary Oldman as Gordon, Michael Caine as Alfred and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox.The Dark Knight arrives with tremendous hype (best superhero movie ever? posthumous Oscar for Heath Ledger?), and incredibly, it lives up to all of it. But calling it the best superhero movie ever seems like faint praise, since part of what makes the movie great--in addition to pitch-perfect casting, outstanding writing, and a compelling vision--is that it bypasses the normal fantasy element of the superhero genre and makes it all terrifyingly real. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) is Gotham City's new district attorney, charged with cleaning up the crime rings that have paralyzed the city. He enters an uneasy alliance with the young police lieutenant, Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), and Batman (Christian Bale), the caped vigilante who seems to trust only Gordon--and whom only Gordon seems to trust. They make progress until a psychotic and deadly new player enters the game: the Joker (Heath Ledger), who offers the crime bosses a solution--kill the Batman. Further complicating matters is that Dent is now dating Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, after Katie Holmes turned down the chance to reprise her role), the longtime love of Batman's alter ego, Bruce Wayne.
In his last completed role before his tragic death, Ledger is fantastic as the Joker, a volcanic, truly frightening force of evil. And he sets the tone of the movie: the world is a dark, dangerous place where there are no easy choices. Eckhart and Oldman also shine, but as good as Bale is, his character turns out rather bland in comparison (not uncommon for heroes facing more colorful villains). Director-cowriter Christopher Nolan (Memento) follows his critically acclaimed Batman Begins with an even better sequel that sets itself apart from notable superhero movies like Spider-Man 2 and Iron Man because of its sheer emotional impact and striking sense of realism--there are no suspension-of-disbelief superpowers here. At 152 minutes, it's a shade too long, and it's much too intense for kids. But for most movie fans--and not just superhero fans--The Dark Knight is a film for the ages. --David Horiuchi
On the Blu-ray disc
The Dark Knight on Blu-ray is a great home-theater showoff disc. The detail and colors are tremendous in both dark and bright scenes (the Gotham General scene is a great example of the latter), and the punishing Dolby TrueHD soundtrack makes the house rattle. (After giving us only Dolby 5.1 in a number of big Blu-ray releases this fall, Warner came through with Dolby TrueHD on this one.) One of the most interesting elements of The Dark Knight was how certain scenes were shot in IMAX, and if you saw the movie in an IMAX theater the film's aspect ratio would suddenly change from standard 2.40:1 to a thrilling 1.43:1 that filled the screen six stories high. For the Blu-ray disc, director Christopher Nolan has somewhat re-created this experience by shifting his film from 2.40:1 aspect ratio (through most of the film) to 1.78:1 in the IMAX scenes. While the effect isn't as dramatic as it was in theaters, it's still an eye-catching experience to be watching the film on a widescreen TV with black bars at the top and bottom, then seeing the 1.78:1 scenes completely fill the screen. The main bonus feature on disc 1 is "Gotham Uncovered: The Creation of a Scene," which is 81 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage about the IMAX scenes, the Bat suit, Gotham Central, and others. You can watch the film and access these featurettes when the icon pops up, or you can simply watch them from the main menu. A welcome and unusual feature is that in addition to English, French, and Spanish audio and subtitles, there's an audio-described option that allows the sight-impaired to experience the film as well.
Disc 2 has two 45-minute documentaries on Bat-gadgets and on the psychology of Batman, both in high definition. They combine movie clips, talking heads, and comic-book panels, but aren't the kind of thing one needs to watch twice. More engaging are six eight-minute segments of Gotham Central, a faux-news program that gives some background to events in the movie, plus a variety of trailers, poster art, and more. The BD-Live component on disc 1 is more interesting than on some earlier Blu-ray discs, which could be simply a matter of the content starting to catch up with the technology. There are three new picture-in-picture commentaries, by Jerry Robinson (creator of the Joker), DC Comics president Paul Levitz, and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.--he's a Batman fan who's made some movie and TV cameos), plus you can record your own commentary and upload it for others to watch. There are also three new featurettes ("Sound of the Batpod," "Harvey Dent's Theme," and "Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard") and two motion comics ("Mad Love," featuring Harley Quinn, and "The Shadow of Ra's Al Ghul"). No longer available is the digital copy of the film (compatible with iTunes and Windows Media, standard definition, download code expires 12/9/09). --David Horiuchi
Product description
The follow-up to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight reunites director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale, who reprises the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne in his continuing war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good. The triumvirate proves effective, but soon find themselves prey to a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker, who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces Batman closer to crossing the fine line between hero and vigilante. Heath Ledger stars as archvillain The Joker, and Aaron Eckhart plays Dent. Maggie Gyllenhaal joins the cast as Rachel Dawes. Returning from Batman Begins are Gary Oldman as Gordon, Michael Caine as Alfred and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox.
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