THE  interesting thing about Batman is that it’s nearly impossible for people to agree on what Batman is about.

 

Sure, Bruce Wayne is a multi-millionaire living in Gotham City who fights crime by night under the name of ‘Batman’ but that’s about as far as you can get before people disagree.

 

For a lot of people, Batman is the TV show starring Adam West and Burt Ward.

 

This series portrayed Batman and Robin as a camp crime-fighting duo and filled the scripts with far-fetched scenarios, to show it’s roots to the comic book – even though the comic book was never that camp.

 

When Tim Burton was selected to direct the film “Batman” he aimed for a mixture of the comic books and the original TV shows. For the most part he succeeded in creating a dark Gotham City that was truly in need of a superhero. He also selected The Joker to be the villain for the film and selected Jack Nicholson to play that part.

 

If we skip forward to the present, we’re up to the second of a new series of Batman films, named ‘The Dark Knight’, which has just been released on DVD. Once again, The Joker is featured as the villain, this time played by Heath Ledger, who died shortly after filming was completed.

 

 A mini-backlash has begun over his role in the film, with many people thinking that his performance was over-hyped due to his death. There does seem to be an element of truth to this as I wouldn’t normally expect him to be tipped for an Oscar nomination on the back of this role. But this argument does take away from the fact that he puts forward an excellent performance.

 

Even Christian Bale, who plays Batman, puts in a decent performance. It almost certainly won’t win him any awards, but it’s far better than his performance as the same character in ‘Batman Begins‘.

 

The problem with any Batman film is that Batman is portrayed as a dark and mysterious figure who no one knows much about. This means that nearly all of the memorable moments in a Batman film are set around the villains.

 

As the Joker is the best character in any form of Batman, it is no coincidence that the best Batman film for years was Tim Burton’s original Batman film. It is also no coincidence that the new best Batman film also features The Joker.

 

I bought the DVD for Christmas having not watched it at the cinema. I didn’t want to watch it. There was still a part of me that was annoyed that they were bringing The Joker back, when we have already seen his creation and his death. I knew that the new films were establishing their own continuity, but I still didn’t like it.

 

 Then I spent three hours on Christmas day watching The Dark Knight and became convinced that it’s not only the best Batman film ever made, but that it is also the best film I’ve seen all year.

 

I enjoyed it so much that the Doctor Who special that I watched immediately afterwards felt dull and lifeless and generally underwhelming – and I am a massive Doctor Who fan! 

 

Recasting The Joker into the dangerous, psychotic person from the comic books worked perfectly. Changing Harvey Dent/Two-Face into a vigilante to parallel Batman worked perfectly. Even the change in Batman’s status at the end of the film is pulled off to perfection.

 

As much as I like the underlying theme about people being who they’re needed to be and not necessarily who people want them to be, there are some flaws with the film. The Joker is dealt with and his role in the film ends rather anti-climatically. I thought Harvey Dent was persuaded to become a murdering vigilante a bit too easily. I think the director would have been better served putting a little more exposition in there.

 

But these are minor gripes. I can’t remember the last time I finished watching a film and wanted to go back and watch it again – which I did, but not immediately. Unfortunately, poor old Doctor Who got even further trampled into the ground, seeing as how I watched it again immediately after that.

 

 When you watch a film twice in one day, you know that what you’re watching is of an incredibly high quality.

 

Highly recommended.

 

To give you more of a taster you could try the trailer here

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TAGS: Batman, Christian Bale, Dark Knight, Heath Ledger, Jack Nicholson, Tim Burton