First film was about fear and over coming it, the second is about hope. Unflinching hope that these characters can save Gotham and stop the madness that awaits to over whelm the city. We see this hope trough three point of views, Batman, Harvey Dent and Gordon.Batman knows that the city needs a hero with a face, not a symbol. He sees Dent as that hero and is setting thing’s up so that Harvey can take over and Bruce can find peace in knowing that his city is safe.
Dent believes in Gotham. So much in fact that he gives every part of him self in to capturing and ending crime in the city. But Dent is still wary on who to trust.Gordon is just a good cop in a really bad place, trying to do his best to stop all of this before it leads to the eventual conclusion of sorrow and darkness.
The three ideals of hope come together in some beautiful story telling from a great script by Christopher Nolan and his brother Johnathan Nolan. There is a tragic air to all the main three characters that no matter how hard they try things will just keep getting worse, and mainly that is in part to the Joker.The Joker is a force of nature in the film, unrelenting and psychopathic. With no real motive in sight, his only goal seems to systematically take apart the lives of all in his way and throw Gotham into complete chaos. The scenes with him are chilling and most memorable are the “pencil trick” scene and the hospital scene with Harvey. But the best part is even though Joker is a psycho he knows what he’s doing. He plays characters against one another and his trick’s are classic and make him the threat that he truly is.
One great/tragic thing is that the trio were actually making a difference in Gotham until Joker comes in and introduces anarchy. Batman had helped Gordon bring in the mob, Dent was ready to put them away for good and the city had a ray of hope. But as with the underlying theme of the film, it’s going to get worse before it gets better, everything falls apart.In the middle is Bruce’s continued torment of being Batman . His unflinching duty to Gotham almost blinds him to the truth of what must be done to truly save it, and watching it unfold is one of the greatest thing’s about the film. His talks with Alfred are a highlight and scenes with Fox and Maroni are some of the best in the film.
The dynamic between Joker and Batman is perfect. Joker sees Batman as a challenge, something he can toy with endlessly because he knows he can’t be corrupted and he won’t kill. Those two thing’s most out of everything fuel the Jokers motives to his madness, to see Batman crack. All the scenes with the two are the most amazing to watch and take this film to a whole new level, especially the finale between the two.Rachel returns in this one, a lot more present then in the last film but over all there is only a couple of scenes where she affected anything of importance, most notably the setting up of the third act. The love triangle with her Bruce and Harvey really isn’t a love triangle at all, it’s just that Rachel knows that Bruce will always need to be Batman and decides to move on with her life and Bruce has trouble accepting that, which lead to some touching moments in the film.
Out of everyone though the most tragic story here is Harvey Dent. At the beginning he had everything, won the DA of Gotham, had the mob on the run and the woman he loved. But then slowly it all gets taken away and in the end your left with a character who has nothing to lose and nothing to gain. Leaving every choice to the only thing he can trust, chance. The fall of Harvey into Two-face makes you feel it, you care about this character and you almost enjoy his quest for revenge at the end.Some of the thing’s that plagued Batman Begins (some of the dialog, the 3rd act) were not any where near this film. There were some parts of the film that felt rushed and pushed in I will admit, but they were so few and far between that it didn’t hurt. By the end you’re satisfied and ,like the last film, wanting more.
Real quick about the ending, in my opinion one of the greatest endings of all time. I couldn’t imagine anything else to round out this story better and make it very interesting if they make further sequels.
