Christian Bale Movie:

		List Price: $35.99		Label: Warner Home Video Salesrank: 77 Released: December 9, 2008
		Our Price: $13.90
		Used Price: $10.28
		MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Media: Blu-ray

Editorial Review:
The follow-up to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight reunites director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale, who reprises the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne in his continuing war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good. The triumvirate proves effective, but soon find themselves prey to a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker, who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces Batman closer to crossing the fine line between hero and vigilante. Heath Ledger stars as archvillain The Joker, and Aaron Eckhart plays Dent. Maggie Gyllenhaal joins the cast as Rachel Dawes. Returning from Batman Begins are Gary Oldman as Gordon, Michael Caine as Alfred and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox.

Description of The Dark Knight (+ Digital Copy and BD Live) [Blu-ray]:
The Dark Knight arrives with tremendous hype (best superhero movie ever? posthumous Oscar for Heath Ledger?), and incredibly, it lives up to all of it. But calling it the best superhero movie ever seems like faint praise, since part of what makes the movie great--in addition to pitch-perfect casting, outstanding writing, and a compelling vision--is that it bypasses the normal fantasy element of the superhero genre and makes it all terrifyingly real. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) is Gotham City's new district attorney, charged with cleaning up the crime rings that have paralyzed the city. He enters an uneasy alliance with the young police lieutenant, Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), and Batman (Christian Bale), the caped vigilante who seems to trust only Gordon--and whom only Gordon seems to trust. They make progress until a psychotic and deadly new player enters the game: the Joker (Heath Ledger), who offers the crime bosses a solution--kill the Batman. Further complicating matters is that Dent is now dating Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, after Katie Holmes turned down the chance to reprise her role), the longtime love of Batman's alter ego, Bruce Wayne.

In his last completed role before his tragic death, Ledger is fantastic as the Joker, a volcanic, truly frightening force of evil. And he sets the tone of the movie: the world is a dark, dangerous place where there are no easy choices. Eckhart and Oldman also shine, but as good as Bale is, his character turns out rather bland in comparison (not uncommon for heroes facing more colorful villains). Director-cowriter Christopher Nolan (Memento) follows his critically acclaimed Batman Begins with an even better sequel that sets itself apart from notable superhero movies like Spider-Man 2 and Iron Man because of its sheer emotional impact and striking sense of realism--there are no suspension-of-disbelief superpowers here. At 152 minutes, it's a shade too long, and it's much too intense for kids. But for most movie fans--and not just superhero fans--The Dark Knight is a film for the ages. --David Horiuchi

On the Blu-ray disc
The Dark Knight on Blu-ray is a great home-theater showoff disc. The detail and colors are tremendous in both dark and bright scenes (the Gotham General scene is a great example of the latter), and the punishing Dolby TrueHD soundtrack makes the house rattle. (After giving us only Dolby 5.1 in a number of big Blu-ray releases this fall, Warner came through with Dolby TrueHD on this one.) One of the most interesting elements of The Dark Knight was how certain scenes were shot in IMAX, and if you saw the movie in an IMAX theater the film's aspect ratio would suddenly change from standard 2.40:1 to a thrilling 1.43:1 that filled the screen six stories high. For the Blu-ray disc, director Christopher Nolan has somewhat re-created this experience by shifting his film from 2.40:1 aspect ratio (through most of the film) to 1.78:1 in the IMAX scenes. While the effect isn't as dramatic as it was in theaters, it's still an eye-catching experience to be watching the film on a widescreen TV with black bars at the top and bottom, then seeing the 1.78:1 scenes completely fill the screen. The main bonus feature on disc 1 is "Gotham Uncovered: The Creation of a Scene," which is 81 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage about the IMAX scenes, the Bat suit, Gotham Central, and others. You can watch the film and access these featurettes when the icon pops up, or you can simply watch them from the main menu. A welcome and unusual feature is that in addition to English, French, and Spanish audio and subtitles, there's an audio-described option that allows the sight-impaired to experience the film as well.

Disc 2 has two 45-minute documentaries on Bat-gadgets and on the psychology of Batman, both in high definition. They combine movie clips, talking heads, and comic-book panels, but aren't the kind of thing one needs to watch twice. More engaging are six eight-minute segments of Gotham Central, a faux-news program that gives some background to events in the movie, plus a variety of trailers, poster art, and more. The BD-Live component on disc 1 is more interesting than on some earlier Blu-ray discs, which could be simply a matter of the content starting to catch up with the technology. There are three new picture-in-picture commentaries, by Jerry Robinson (creator of the Joker), DC Comics president Paul Levitz, and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.--he's a Batman fan who's made some movie and TV cameos), plus you can record your own commentary and upload it for others to watch. There are also three new featurettes ("Sound of the Batpod," "Harvey Dent's Theme," and "Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard") and two motion comics ("Mad Love," featuring Harley Quinn, and "The Shadow of Ra's Al Ghul"). Last, disc 3 has a digital copy of the film compatible with iTunes and Windows Media (standard definition, download code expires 12/9/09). --David Horiuchi

Product description
The follow-up to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight reunites director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale, who reprises the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne in his continuing war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good. The triumvirate proves effective, but soon find themselves prey to a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker, who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces Batman closer to crossing the fine line between hero and vigilante. Heath Ledger stars as archvillain The Joker, and Aaron Eckhart plays Dent. Maggie Gyllenhaal joins the cast as Rachel Dawes. Returning from Batman Begins are Gary Oldman as Gordon, Michael Caine as Alfred and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox.

The Dark Knight (+ Digital Copy and BD Live) [Blu-ray] Reviews:
The Dark Knight
2009-11-09 - When I went to see this movie for the first time, I had very low expectations because Batman Begins wasn't in my taste. I am not Christian Bale's biggest fan, but I love super hero movies. To my surprise the movie turned out to be very entertaining. It's funny, dramatic, clever, and full of action sequences. My main issue with this movie is that it has a few noticeable continuity problems. This movie should be labeled: Joker Begins. In my opinion, there has never been an actor who could portray the Batman character properly (besides the voice of Kevin Conroy), but most of the supporting actors in this movie are fantastic, especially Gary Oldman aka Harry Potter's "Sirius Black" and Heath Ledger aka Brokeback Mountain's "Ennis Del Mar".

A Performance That Inspired Me...
2009-11-08 - All I have to say is this; after seeing Heath Ledger's portrayl of The Joker, I left the theatre realising that is the kind of character I'm going to be...

Batman grows up
2009-11-07 - Batman of the comics was the hero with the "wow!"-factor, the hero who took care of "everyman". A hero has to grow up and move along with time, adapt to a culture in which drive-by shootings are not something of Bonnie and Clyde but "that neighborhood", in which the sports-hero shows miraculous muscle growth over time, in which every certainty starts having a question-mark.
We deserve this Batman; the man in the hero has his doubts and question marks, he struggles and comes through. He has become us. Go see the movie and let your mind do the wandering over the various levels at which this movie speaks to you, from the gut to the brain to the emotions. Live it and let your inner self grow.

The Dark Knight
2009-11-04 - Now, like a lot of people, I was really hyped up to see "The Dark Knight" when it came out a year and half ago. First day, middle of the theatre, waiting patiently and anxiously.
And if I am being totally honest with you, I was bored to tears.
I didn't really think anymore about the movie, if I'm being honest with you, until, while bored one day, sitting alone in my apartment, I noticed my roommates copy of "The Dark Knight" sitting on the top of the Blu-Ray player. I thought to myself, "well, maybe I was wrong and I was just letting the hype get in the way." So I put it in and started it and watched the entire thing again.
And was once again bored to tears.
Now I know that many people view this film as some modern version of "The Godfather" or "Casablanca", but I just can't buy into it. What I see is a mediocre version of "Heat" with a great performance from the late Heath Ledger, but a movie where everyone else flounders with one dimensional roles and broad characterizations.
Of the main cast only Ledger really brings anything interesting to his role, an astonishing thing seeing as the role he has is one note throughout. Christian Bale as Batman is a dull as Val Kilmer, while Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman both appear to be cashing checks. Aaron Eckhart plays his part as Harvey Dent surprisingly well, seeing as it is a different sort of role than what I have seen him in before (Neil LaBute movies mostly), but can't do much with his transformation as Two Face. Some of that may have to do with Maggie Gyleenhaal, usually a reliable actor, who looks bored and unsure of how to play her part in this movie.
Storywise, I just wasn't engrossed with the story of "The Dark Knight". For the most part I wondered how much nonsense the Nolan brothers were trying to shove into one movie. The story continues on and on and seems like it's trying to say something major, but never does. To add to that, to me, it seems like anytime the narrative seems to be gaining steam, the movie throws in another action scene and it loses all narrative movement.
To add to that, Nolan still has yet to find out how to shoot action scenes effectively and coherantly, and problem that also plagued the superior "Batman Begins".
I wanted to like "The Dark Knight", I did. I just couldn't. I guess nothing is for everyone. I guess this one just isn't for me.

Well Done! Not worth 22 dollars...
2009-11-01 - I really love this movie. But I felt 22 dollars for the double disc was a waste of money. They didn't really show anything on Heath Ledger or the making of the movie. What a waste of a dvd. What was the point of having 2 discs if your not going to put anything on it? They didn't even put any deleted scences on the disc, I'm sure they had some. To the people who haven't bought this movie yet, I wouldn't get the double disc, I'd get the single disc movie. Save your money.