The Knight is Getting Darker ...

It is now Wednesday and I am sitting at my boss's computer (I'm supposed to be looking at something for a play I'm directing), but I felt an urge to say a few things about the research I've done on the upcoming film The Dark Knight.

By now, I have read all the articles and watched all of the trailers and seen all of the Comcast ONDEMAND specials titled "Gotham Tonight." These specials star Anthony Michael Hall (The Breakfast Club) as Gotham news anchor Mike Engel. He's quite convincing and has actually set an interesting tone for the movie. I think we will be seeing a movie that focuses much more on corruption than anything else. How will the bureaucrats of Gotham City be affected by Batman? Good move by Nolan, the director. We always get how the villains are affected, but we never get to see the political arena. Perhaps Nolan's idea is to have each film focus on how Batman affects different areas of Gotham, sort of how HBO's The Wire focuses on different areas of Baltimore and how they are affected by the drug rings.

Based on HBO's Inside Look of The Dark Knight, Nolan is focusing a lot on how Gotham will blame Batman for The Joker's appearance. This was nicely set up at the end of Batman Begins when Gordon questioned Batman about escalation. While most audiences focused on the appearance of the Joker's playing card, the real preview lied in how Gordon warned Batman that when a man in a mask jumps off rooftops, he's only asking to bring about enemies who will escalate their arsenal of tricks. It seems that this will be Harvey Dent's big argument in The Dark Knight.

While this is an excellence plot line for the film and raises a very interesting question not asked by a film before, I worry about something. Will there be a period in the movie where Bruce Wayne decides the only way to save Gotham is to let it go without Batman? We've seen this before too many times. In Superman II, we see Metropolis without Superman and in Spiderman II, Peter Parker decides he can be Spiderman no longer. Is this the cliche of the superhero sequel now? The plot is getting a little too predictable. Bruce Wayne will spend a half hour of the film watching Gotham City destroy itself and then come back to save his city from The Joker. Hopefully Nolan will take a different route, or, if he doesn't, he'll make it more interesting. I have a lot of hope!

I will be seeing the film on Friday, July 18th at 12:01 am. I'm sure I'll have plenty to say on Friday!