r/TheDarkKnightTrilogy

The Dark Knight trilogy by Christopher Nolan is one of the most well-known superhero trilogies of all time. Batman Begins brought a more grounded tone to superheroes movies, The Dark Knight proved comic book movies can be more than just being superheroes, and The Dark Knight Rises is still the highest grossing Batman movie to this day. This trilogy was a favorite of mine when I was younger and I, so I wanted to rewatch the movies to see whether my opinions on the movies has changed or still holds up.
My Ranking: The Dark Knight > Batman Begins > The Dark Knight Rises.

View Poll

The Joker was right near the guy that exploded inside of the police station and a lot of cops and inmates were killed, how did he manage to not get killed in the explosion?

That was taking a major risk for him, could have been maimed or burned really bad and unable to continue his plans.

Even though it's ranked in the top 100 on IMDB, I've noticed TDKR has been getting lots of criticism and been ranking relatively low on Nolan fans' lists for the last few years.

So I got into rewatching it over the weekend, and my feelings stand: that it's underrated as such.

Now, let's get out of the way the things that are "easy" to criticize (because it's not a perfect film by any stretch):

1. Bane's voice- okay, what an eccentric and strange villain with the choice of that voice and mask. It's such a distraction, and imo it IS the biggest flaw in the movie. It can easily be cherry picked to make it seem like an inferior movie if people are looking for it. This is where most of my point-deductions for overall score come in.
2. Bloated/too long/editing lacking- yeah, sure there are so many minutes that could have been edited, especially toward the end of the middle of the movie, where things are feeling rushed with how the people of GOtham are responding to the takeover.
3. Talia's eyeclose scene- so I know this scene has been cherry picked by lots of people in recent years, almost like a meme now, but I actually disagree with this sentiment. I didn't even notice it on the first few watches until I saw it had become a meme to riticize it.

Now, let's talk about why it is underrated and why I consider it one of the 10 best films since the year 2010.....

1. The context of TDKR is about how a hero must conquer their fears to escape the "pit" they are in, a quasi profound revelation describes it through the metaphor of doing it without the rope, which gives a hero a fall back option; having no choice but to make it is a philosophical strategy that can propel a hero to have greater odds not to fail when taking risks.
2. Sophisticated dialogue between Bruce and Selina: I really appreciate how Nolan handles the dialogue and acting when Bruce and Selina are out of costume. It remains witty and classy and established the sophistication behind the masks, once again giving more versimilitude to these superhero characters. Same with Talia (unlike Bane's).
3. The Robin reveal at the end was honestly one of the best endings of a movie, combined with Albert's (Michael Caine's) premonition, in the last two decades. Chills every single time at all of it all the way to the credits. Excellent way to end a film.
4. Catwoman's/Selina's character development and subplot- not as good as Harvey Dent's, but also was a sufficient handling of the legendary character. From the moment she is introduced, her substory about getting the clean slate and how topical that can be today, as well as Hathaway's acting in this role is quite good.
5. Enough twists and depth to keep enetertaining. From Talia's slow knife scene to Catwoman showing up in the clutch on the batmobile, to Bruce discovering the key to escaping the pit, to the scene where Gordon Levitt reveals to Bruce he knows he's Batman, to Robin's reveal and the pearls missing, and the funeral, to Catwoman leading Batman right into a trap, and probably a few more I'm forgetting, the movie isn't lazy in executing on surprises.

In summary, even though TDKR has garnered unfair criticism in recent years regarding a few parts or moments, upon rewatching it, I think it is highly underrated and consider it one of the best movies of the last two decades. As a critical reviewer of movies with very high standards, I give it a solid 8/10 star rating, maybe even an 8.3/10.

The theory that I have is that Harvey Dent being turned into Two Face was a lucky accident for The Joker because he wanted to kill Harvey and he went insane instead.

So The Joker was probably going to kill Harvey or just take him hostage at the party of Bruce Wayne's, maybe even carve his face, but Bruce protected him and ruined his plans to kill or torture Harvey.

After Bane fought and broke Batman by breaking his back and utterly defeating him why didn't he just reveal that he had fought and defeated Batman and unmasked him as Bruce Wayne on TV?

Wouldn't this utterly destroy Batman and break the hope of the people completely? Bane wasn't thinking clearly here it's odd that he omitted his victory over Batman from his broadcast on TV.

I have a theory that in the Dark Knight Joker knows Bruce is Batman. Hear me out, at the start of the film Bruce is still in love with Rachel and is (somewhat) friends with Harvey, then later on Joker kidnaps both Rachel and Harvey. It makes since for him to capture Harvey but why Rachel, she has 0 known relationship with Batman and yet Joker gives Batman the incorrect information knowing that he'll go after Rachel so he switched the locations so that the GCPD will go for Rachel and intern she'll die and what happens Rachel dies, which emotionally manipulates Batman so that he'll go after Joker instead of saving the citizens, which Joker predicted.

I rewatched the Dark knight a few weeks ago, and I have to say, I don't think I like it very much. No shade if you like the movie but to me it just felt like a mess.

For starters, the pacing felt really bad. I'm no expert on making movies, so I might be talking out of my caboose but the pacing felt so rushed and dragged at the same time. There were so many plot points that the movie was constantly explaining to you that it started to give me a headache trying to follow everything. My sister straight up didn't understand what was happening (but she was on her phone playing some match 3 King game so that's her fault lol). I feel like a lot of the plot could have been trimmed, for example, why did Batman go to China? This was so unnecessary and uninteresting, this movie is quoted so much with so many iconic lines and scenes but does anyone ever think about the first arc of this movie? They could have just replaced the Chinese businessman guy with some random corrupt Gotham salesman who gets arrested instantly and the movie would have been exactly the same. There was just so much crap they shoved into this movie that it just felt bloated. There were so many different stories and themes they wanted to shove in here, that they had to make most of the dialogue just exposition.

I'd say once the Joker gets arrested the movie picks up a lot and I started liking it a lot more. While the movie up until then felt really unfocused and dull. The Joker interrogation scene really turned it around. This scene is a masterpiece, it does such a good job at pushing the plot forward while also being fun and tense to watch. Unlike the scenes of Commissioner Gordon and Harvey Dent talking in an office about how they're going to fix Gotham which plagued the first act of the movie. From that point on the movie felt way more tight and focused and I started to understand why The movie is so loved way more. I still wasn't a huge fan of the Two-Face stuff and wish it was focused more on the Joker, but a lot of people seem to love Two-Face in this movie so I'll let it slide.

Another thing I didn't like about the second half of the movie was how they kept beating over your head what the theme of the movie was. Like I get it, "some people want to watch the world burn, but LOOK there are good people, look at Harvey Dent, isn't he so perfect, I just love Harvey Dent, I want to orally pleasure Harvey Dent" they really liked Harvey Dent in that movie. Also, when Batman was on the roof with Joker and the boats didn't explode, and he just looks at him and says "You see, people are good" I kind of rolled my eyes a bit. Not everything needs to be said, I think if Batman just smiled at him with one of those jerk off smiles he does rarely that would have been a lot more effective in my opinion. Because I just hate it when themes are explained out loud to me. I love thinking about movies and coming to my own conclusions. But it felt like everything was explained out loud so the braindead Oscar people would understand and give The movie a reward.

And that was another thing I didn't like, the dialogue felt really off. Nobody talked like real people they were either spewing expositio, making quips, or trying as hard as they could to get into a quote book and it just felt really off. You can tell Christopher Nolan really wanted this to feel like a deep intellectual film that just so happened to have Batman, but it just felt kind of tryhardy. I got nothing against cool quotes and monologues, but only when they're done sparingly. I really liked the Jungle speech by Alfred, I especially liked how he doesn't tell Bruce how they found the guy until closer to the end of the movie, it made it more impactful. If that was one of the only quotables from the movie I would have liked it a lot more, but it wasn't. Harvey Dent, Batman, Rachel, they were all constantly making deep quotes about how mad this world is or how hard it is to lose someone and it just got annoying.

Every character felt the same, especially Harvey Dent, I did not like Harvey Dent at all, and believe it or not I really like the character of two face, but he just felt so boring in this movie. He had no personality outside of "noble politician who is now mourning," what made no sense is how he started doing the coin flip to decide people's fates BEFORE he became two face and Rachel exploded. That made no sense to me and it felt way less impactful. It makes way more sense for him to start doing chance afterwards as there was literally a 50/50 chance if him or Rachel would have been saved. It could have helped emphasize how him being the one that was saved broke him. I think I just don't like the Noble characters with no personality. I've never liked Knight or Paladin characters because they all feel the same, and that's kind of how Harvey Dent feels in this movie. I know the whole point is about how he snapped and how there's no truly good men, but it just felt out of character, especially with how he started killing people at chance before he became Two Face, he snapped two early and it felt unnatural. I also thought the acting felt really cardboard, but I saw someone else say that the guy who played Harvey Dent was a perfect comic book character performance, so maybe that's a hot take that I didn't like the acting.

Now with that being said, I think the Joker is amazing, and singlehandedly carries that movie. In a way, every character feeling like a trope with no personality made the Joker stand out so much more. He almost feels like an ironic jab at the rest of the movie. To explain what I mean, in the dinner party when joker breaks in and tries to scare Rachel, he explains that he got his scars because his dad beat him. He gives a generic speech about how he had a rough time growing up so he's crazy now, pretty typical backstory for a movie. However, later in the movie he explains it again, but this time, it wasn't his dad, it was he himself who did it, and he did it because of his annoying wife. The movie never confirms which story is true, personally I don't think either of them are true, but still the fact he changes the story is such a cool detail. I like how both stories feel so generic, like something I would have heard in a million different movies, because that's how every other character feels, they feel like a walking trope I've seen a million different times. So in my opinion, it feels like Joker is mocking them in a way. I doubt that's what was intended, but you can't deny that the Joker brings so much life to the movie. If you remove the character (and ESPECIALLY Heith Ledgers performance) you just get a lifeless generic crime thriller full of pseudo-intellectual try hardy quotes with a theme that gets beat over the top of your head.

Because this movie doesn't feel like a story that Nolan was dying to tell. It felt like he had to make a Batman movie, so he wanted to make the most "intellectual" and "deep" movie where Batman is basically a side character, because this movie does not feel like a Batman movie. You replace batman with any vigilante and I doubt it would feel that different, because this was the Harvey Dent and Joker movie, I barely even talked about Batman because he was one of the least memorable parts of the movie. Joker was hilarious and intense, Commissioner Gordon did a really bad job at suppressing his accent, Harvey Dent pissed me off, Rachel was woman character, but Batman, Batman was just there. I don't dislike Christopher Nolan, I watched Memento fairly recently and loved it, that felt like a cool idea someone had one day and decided to make into a movie, instead of an idea that was made up just so it could be made into a movie. In my opinion, (one that I don't expect anyone to agree with) the Dark Knight just felt like Oscar bait with Batman.

edit: there you go I added paragraphs you guys can shut up about it and actually read the post before flaming me, clearly you've never gotten a long text from a parent or partner before, no hate I'm just joking. I know I might it seem like what I was saying was fact at times but this is all just my opinion and I am not an expert on movies. I did not go into it wanting to hate it, I thought I loved the movie but was heavily disappointed on my second watch. I don't watch movies just to nitpick them, atleast I try not to. anyways, good movie I just don't see how it's one of the best movies of all time.

Foxe laughed at Coleman Reese threatening to blackmail Bruce Wayne as Batman after he ran the numbers and proved it, The Joker threatened to kill Reese and Bruce saved him.

What happens if Reese just told the police everything anyway with proof and his records and exposed his identity? Could Bruce Wayne defeat him in court?

Would Bruce go to prison if Reese exposed him or would Reese get humiliated and ruin his own reputation after he lost in court?

I’ve been rewatching the trilogy for the millionth time and I always feel Harvey dent was so rushed. He is a side character in TDK yet they introduce him, his relationships with Batman, Bruce Wayne, Rachel and Gordon all in act one. Act two he takes on joker and loses. Act three a heel turn that made Daenerys in GOT look like a slow burn.

I feel like he should have been slowly developed over three movies.

Batman begins - he is “making a name for himself at internal affairs” as Gordon puts it. Jim is the one clean cop surrounded by corruption. He neither gets his hands dirty nor does he turn rat. Maybe we see Dent try to make a name for himself through Gordon which causes friction.

TDK- he’s the DA and his relationship develops with Rachel as it does but instead of it coming to a head in the second act, the final scene of the movie is dent crying, holding his coin exactly as it was in TDK. We look over to Batman looking depressed in his penthouse, Alfred hiding the letter all as originally played out. But all the main good guys are damaged, battered and bruised (almost a homage to the
Empire strikes back)

TDKR- we scrap the whole tale of two cities/dent act/Bane/Talia storyline and instead it’s two face on a rampage and Batman and Gordon needing to stop their old friend.

One other thing I would change would be to introduce catwoman earlier. Anne Hathaway was criminally underrated IMO. She fitted the grounded world so well and the way she delivered the duality of her as a crying vulnerable damsel in distress straight to a deadly femme fatale. I thought she was great but they wasted so much time developing talia who had zero chemistry with bale and had one of the most wooden performances I’ve ever seen. She could have been a background character in the first two movies that becomes a major ally to Batman in the third movie.

Robin John Blake replaced Batman by finding the Batcave and becoming the new Batman or maybe just Robin without him, wasn't there supposed to be a sequel where The Joker escapes and meets Robin and has to deal with him?

John Blake doesn't seem like he can handle The Joker but he might fight him well, he might also overwhelmed because his training sucks compared to Bruce Wayne.

They showed the police getting The Joker after he is caught by Batman and locked away, does he ever get a trial in court for his crimes or would he have been locked up in Arkham Asylum without a trial as an insane terrorist wearing clown makeup and been determined to be mentally incompetent to stand trial and answer for his crimes?

I would hate to be his court appointed lawyer, and he might tell the truth about corrupting Harvey Dent and ruin everything so he probably didn't go on trial but his defense would be crazy to hear, how does he justify himself and his crimes without sounding insane and being declared incompetent and not able to understand his own crimes and actions?

The Joker wanted Harvey Dent at the party but Bruce knocked him out and hid him, what exactly happens to Harvey if The Joker showed up before Bruce Wayne arrived on the helicopter and caught Harvey unaware without any means of escape?

Would Harvey get kidnapped and tortured or just get killed outright?

Also how did The Joker avoid getting caught or arrested leaving the party?

Selina Kyle was scared of Bane and the League of Shadows but The Joker was just a laughing idiot and she was tough in hand to hand combat, but he has his weapons and tricks and henchmen who are basically goons, would have been funny seeing him encounter her and she just kicks his ass which isn't funny for him at all.

The Joker would never fear a woman until she beat him up just a funny thing to see.