I made it a point not to read any reviews about the Dark Knight coming out from newspapers to those coming from blogs so as not to spoil myself of what the movie has in store. Last night I was able to watch The Dark Knight in Trinoma (Wow sosyal!)

I failed to watch the first film, “Batman Begins”, so I supposed that the 2nd picks up where the first left off. You kinda have this feeling that it ain’t starting out right with all the conflict already building up from there.

The presence of the Joker have left an important imprint to the movie.It was never stated in the film on how he started his activities but you could tell that unlike the Jokers of past Batman films and animated cartoon series (the latest being “The Batman”), he is a villain like no other.

Unlike most villains who do their thing just for the money and those do it for revenge’s sake, this particular Joker doesn’t have a reason for him to do evil (maybe the fact that he is a near-psychotic would probably help us explain it). He orchestrates his villainous activities as part of his larger social experiment. He has this certain charisma that could manipulate a lot of people that even up to the most non-corruptible people, he could really bring them down. Heath Ledger’s Joker has a knack with one liners, and one that could probably become an all-time classic is when he said to Batman “You complete me…”.

And that brings us to Harvey Dent a.k.a Two-Face. If we have Crisostomo Ibarra/Simoun in the Rizal novels, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, so does that Batman universe. Harvey represents the basic rules of life: Everything’s fair. He depended so much in chances that he never realized that all the good that he did was because he did it himself (with the help of Commissioner Gordon and gal pal Bruce Wayne). Grieving by the death of his one true love Rachel (who had a past with Bruce), Joker took this opportunity to manipulate Harvey’s thoughts while he is at his most wrecked state (literally), and from the goody-risk taker that is Harvey came out the chance-dependent-obsessed Two-Face. As Two-Face, he wants everything to be fair and square, even out the odds per say, which drove him to near insanity.

A tragic character really as he never knew that not everything happens in chances, he could not save Rachel either as she made her choice to die for him. the funny thing though is that he became Two-Face for a day and for that particular day, he already sported his signature Two-Face suit. Hilarious!

Second in the crime-busting triumvirate is Commissioner Jim Gordon. He goes by law and is very dedicated to his job to clean the streets of Gotham from crime. As it is in the original comic books, he works as an able ally to Batman. Even though he play by the rules stated in the book and that the Batman is a wanted vigilante who must face the Law eventually, he believes that he [Batman] is the symbol of hope to the city. Batman, for him, is what urges the rightful enforcers of the law to protect the city in the public interest, a sort of alarm clock.

I was very much surprised that Jim died early in the film but it was such foolishness of a viewer that had us very much surpised again to see him all alive and well. His family were also given emphasis but my only question is that, why did the film focused too much on his son and less so to his supposed-famous daughter (who would become Batgirl)? I wished they could have switched parts.

Third is, of course, Bruce Wayne. He is quite the perky guy with all his intelligent humor brought by his conversations with Alfred the butler and his right-hand man (played by Morgan Freeman). Christopher Bale made a very good impression on being emo Bruce especially when he knew that he cannot rekindle his supposed romance with childhood friend Rachel. What really turns me off, is that whenever he dons his Batman costume he sported a husky and disgruntled voice as if something big smacked his face outrighta nd somehow deformed his mouth even in actuality he doesn’t. He sounds cool whenever he speaks as Bruce Wayne but really does he really have to hide his voice whenever he’s Batman? Geez….

Production-wise, impressive take on making New York look a lot like Gotham City. When it comes to musical scoring, it goes well into the ever-changing mood of the movie. If you know the part where Joker was in a huge truck and was chasing after a SWAT van, with Harvey in it, right in the middle of a freeway; there was no music coming out from the background whatsoever, just the sound of destroyed cars and exploding helicopters which is really such a thrill ride for the viewer.

One inaccuracy I observed is the mentioning of how many people died during the earlier stages of Joker’s orchestrated plan. Several characters mentioned 5 people died and was till five all throughout the film but one particular character (where he was guarding the interrogation room with Joker in it), answered 6 when Joker asked how many people died earlier.

Moral of the story, given the kind of social experiment the Joker used to make people kill each other, he still failed. On the part where he planted bombs in two ferries (one with civilians and other other with criminals), he gave the people of both ferries a chance to live by giving them each a remote that could trigger a bomb planted in the other ferry. The civilians wanted the criminals in the other ferry to die to pay for their sins and that “they passed on their chance to live their lives in peace”. They never did. They realized that by blowing up that ferry, they are no different to the “criminals” they accused them of. On the other ferry, the big guy in the orange jumpsuit took the remote and threw it away believing that as much as they wanna live, they would never risk their chance to lead a second chance in life.

As much as I wanna give a perfect five, I have to give it a four given the inaccuracies shown in the movie.