Does The Dark Knight hold up?

Let’s find out:

 So we start off with a well-staged bank robbery and we meet the Joker (a fantastic Heath Ledger). We then meet District Attorney Harvey Dent (a fantastic Aaron Eckhart) and we find out that Jim Gordon (a fantastic Gary Oldman) is overseeing the Major Crimes Unit.

The Chechen (Ritchie Coster) and the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) have some kind of drug deal going; but, the chechen is dissatisfied with the Scarecrow’s drug of choice. Batman impostors interrupt the drug deal, only for the real Batman (Christian Bale, still a great and believable Bruce Wayne. His Batman voice, however? Needs a little work. He sounds like someone who has a bad cold.) to interrupt the drug deal.

Batman is unsure about Harvey Dent. Speaking of Harvey, he is prosecuting Sal Maroni (Eric Roberts); but, a witness gets violent on him.

Mr. Lau hides the money of the gangsters from the cops while he (Mr. Lau) goes to Hong Kong and we reunite with the Joker. The Joker wants a cut, the gangsters refuse and Gambol (one of the gangsters) wants the Joker’s head.

Batman is tasked with getting Mr. Lau back and he does so. Harvey and Rachel Dawes (a great Maggie Gyllenhaal) offer Lau the money of the gangsters in exchange for the gangsters. The gangsters do a villain team-up with the Joker.

We then discover that the Joker killed and tortured one of the Batman impostors. The Joker says that he is going to kill people until Batman pulls a Tony Stark at the end of Iron Man. We find out that the Joker is going after Harvey Dent, the judge handling the case of the gangsters and Commissioner Loeb.

Bruce Wayne (Bale, for those not in the know) throws a fundraiser for Harvey Dent. Harvey proposes to Rachel and Rachel is indecisive. The Joker crashes the party, Bruce hides Harvey and Bruce-as-Batman saves Rachel from the Joker.

Later, Bruce tries to perform criminal analysis on the Joker and Alfred (a fantastic Michael Caine) just thinks that the Joker is crazy. 

Lucius Fox (a fantastic Morgan Freeman)  is ambushed by Coleman Reese. Reese has figured out that Bruce Wayne is Batman and he wants money to keep his mouth shut. Fox points out that there is no way that Reese is going to win this fight.

Gordon (apparently) dies. Harvey starts to go dark and Batman wants to pull a Tony Stark at the end of Iron Man; but, Harvey (falsely) wants to do the same thing. The Joker’s goons go after Harvey’s convoy. We learn that Gordon’s death was a fake-out, and…

Look, we needed a fake-out death. Otherwise, the movie would’ve started to become predictable. However, Gordon letting his wife believe that he was dead was a jerk move.

Anyway, the Joker is stopped; but, Harvey and Rachel (apparently) are having trouble getting home. The Joker and Batman then prove that they have more chemistry than most couples in rom-coms do and the Joker lets Batman know what happened to Harvey and Rachel. Batman works on saving Rachel, Gordon works on saving Harvey and one guard watches the Joker.

Harvey and Rachel can communicate via phone and we find out that one of them is doomed to die. It turned out that the Joker tricked Batman (I always thought that Batman was kind of dumb for trusting the Joker); so, Batman saves Harvey and Rachel is blown up, and…

As a teen, I did not think that they would go through with killing off Rachel. I thought it would turn out that the Joker faked her death/Rachel escaped somehow/her death records got screwed up/the Joker/his goons kidnapped her/Rachel got badly injured but she still managed to survive/Rachel just looked like she was dead. I know that the death of the female love interest is very common in the comics (Gwen Stacy and Women in refrigerators and all that); but, in comic book film adaptations? This was the era of Tobey Maguire saving Kirsten Dunst.

Rachel’s death does add to the tragic feeling of the film and it does give Harvey more motivation than just going insane from losing his looks (I always thought that comics Harvey was very vain). 

Anyway, the Joker is still in control. Reese tries to pull a third-person version of Tony Stark at the end of Iron Man. The Joker realizes that Batman is his Clarice Starling; so, he threatens to blow up a hospital if nobody kills Reese. Batman saves Reese, proving that Lucius Fox was right.

The Joker turns Harvey to the villainous road. Harvey goes on a rampage of revenge after the mob and corrupt cops.

Two ferries are departing from Gotham. One ferry has citizens and the other has prisoners. The Joker gives the ferries the choice of blowing up the other. Otherwise, the Joker will blow up both ferries. 

It turns out that Batman has been doing some cell phone hacking and Fox is not okay with it. Batman finds the Joker; but, due to some Joker trickery, Batman’s life is made harder. 

One prisoner decides that he is not going to be doing any murdering today. Ironically, the citizens are a little more morally corrupt; but, not THAT morally corrupt and they decide that they will not be doing any murdering today, either. Batman stops the Joker from blowing up the ferries, the Joker reveals that Harvey Dent will drive Gotham to darkness.

We find out that Harvey kidnapped Gordon’s wife, son and daughter and that he is making Gordon choose which one gets to live.

Sidebar: Gary Oldman is fantastic in this scene.

Anyway, Batman kills Harvey so that Gordon’s son can live. Batman takes the fall for Harvey’s crimes. Alfred finds out that Rachel chose Harvey and he decides not to tell Bruce. Lucius tries to destroy the cell phone hacking device; but, it turns out that Bruce beat him to the punch. Batman ends the film on the lam.

The Dark Knight is the comic book movie that changed comic book movies and it is still great. It has great writing and great performances.

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