{"id":3227,"date":"2008-07-28T21:07:19","date_gmt":"2008-07-28T21:07:19","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-07-28T21:07:19","modified_gmt":"2008-07-28T21:07:19","slug":"The-Dark-Knight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=3227","title":{"rendered":"The Dark Knight"},"content":{"rendered":"

I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight <\/span>over the weekend.<\/p>\n

And wow… the film looks nothing like the previous Batman movies. <\/p>\n

In fact, it looks more like a Michael Mann movie. <\/p>\n

The Chicago location gave Gotham a much more realistic city atmosphere than we've become accustomed to seeing in the previous Batman movies.<\/p>\n

And when I read that one of director Christopher Nolan's biggest influences for the film's style was the movie Heat<\/span>, which starred Al Pacino and Robert Deniro, I wasn't surprised. <\/p>\n

Anyone viewing the two movies will immediately see this in the cinematography and editing styles. There's even a nod to Heat<\/span> with the cameo appearance of William Fichtner as a Bank Manager during the opening robbery sequence.<\/p>\n

In fact, if The Dark Knight<\/span> wasn't a superhero movie, I'd swear it was a crime drama along the lines of Heat, Thief<\/span>, Miami Vice<\/span> or Collateral<\/span>. From the use of the color blue as a motif to the glass window offices, penthouses and buildings of Gotham's inhabitants, the film just felt like a Michael Mann crime drama. <\/p>\n

Heath Ledger's performance was excellent. It was dark, brooding and scary. I can see how he may have fallen into a depression after dwelling in the mind of such a psychopathic character.<\/p>\n

As usual, there were some fun supporting character turns from Morgan Freeman and Micheal Caine, as well as a more nuanced performance from Gary Oldman, who I can't help but think looks like The Simpson's <\/span> neighbor Ned Flanders when I see him wearing that mustache and glasses.<\/p>\n

Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal also turned in first-rate performances that could easily have translated into more conventional crime drama movies.<\/p>\n

The Dark Knight's <\/span>grim and tragic sensibilities also gave it a totally different viewpoint than your standard superhero flick. Whether this is good or bad depends on the viewer.<\/p>\n

Now, don't get me wrong. I loved the film. I'm a huge Michael Mann fan. And I applaud Nolan for a job well done. <\/p>\n

I'm even convinced this is a better approach than the comic cartoon versions turned in previously starring Clooney, Kilmer, et al. <\/p>\n

But all of this does bring up the question: Is this going to be a trend we can expect to see more of in American superhero action films? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight over the weekend. And wow… the film looks nothing like the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"pkxiong","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9f8af5b095993574d13f861a423eb1e9e7bb4005d0103d484bc5d57851862bee?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"1","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight over the weekend. And wow… the film looks nothing like the","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["News"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":180,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":2,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"pkxiong","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=100"},"magazine_blocks_comment":1,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9f8af5b095993574d13f861a423eb1e9e7bb4005d0103d484bc5d57851862bee?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"News<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}