Blu-Ray Review:

The Dark Knight

By Jason Gillard

*Screen shots are not from the Blu-Ray source.

Movie

What more can be said about this film that hasn't been said already.  The movie has gone on to gross obscene amounts of money and will continue to do so.  For me this was my favorite movie of the year.  A lot of people picked Iron Man as their favorite and even though I liked Iron Man I don't think it compares at all with the Dark Knight.  To summarize the plot, Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent are forced to deal with the chaos unleashed by an anarchist mastermind known only as the Joker, as it drives each of them to their limits.  This is a really basic plot summary as there is a lot going on in this film.  It surpasses Batman Begins in almost every way.  The other really amazing thing about this movie is that some scenes were filmed using IMAX cameras.  These scenes add a level of clarity and suck you in to the film even more.  I should also mention that this movie would not have been as good if the Joker did not turn out they way he has.  The late Heath Ledger does an absolutely phenomenal job and his performance is worthy of an Oscar for sure.  Ledger plays the Joker with a touch of insanity and does a great job and adding little nuances to the character that makes him all the more creepy.  There are gadgets, big locations, amazing stunts, plus the introduction of one of my most favorite vehicles used in the Batman series and that is the Bat-Pod.  This is basically the Tumbler on wheels and watching it fly around Gotham is nothing short of breathtaking.  Mark my words, if you have not seen this film, you should.

9 out of 10

Video

Fantastic.  There I said it!  One thing I think I should mention right away is that the scenes that were shot in IMAX will fill your whole screen and then when it switches back to  the regular scenes it will be a 2:40:1 aspect ratio.  The scenes that were shot with IMAX cameras are so jaw dropping its unbelievable.  I would give these scenes a 12 out of 10 in the detail and immersivness aspect.  That's not to say that the other scenes are not good because they are.  The black levels are solid which is important for a movie like this, the colour that is in the film jumps right off the screen.  I did not see any edge enhancement and the picture is certainly clean with little to no dust or scratches and its what I would expect out of the transfer for the highest grossing film of 2008.  I cannot recommend this transfer enough. You will enjoy showing this one off to friends, that's for sure.

10 out of 10

Audio

Sonically the audio lives up to the video transfer in every way.  You are presented with a 5.1 Dolby TrueHD track that has a lot of bass to it.  Explosions, breaking glass, a semi flipping over end to end all come across with piercing reality and the bass will have your neighbors running for cover.  I also really like the score for this film and it comes through very well.  The surround channels are very active as you would expect for a film such as this.  The audio does not get much better than this and even the little subtle nuances come across well.  The Dark Knight will have you putting your hands up and cheering with joy as the sounds surround you at every turn.

9 out of 10

Extras

This is what you get in the way of extras:

Focus Points
Documentary: "Batman Tech"
Documentary: "Batman Unmasked"
Shorts: "Gotham Tonight"
Still Galleries
Theatrical Trailers/TV Spots
Digital Copy
BD-Live

To be honest I wasn't as impressed with the extras as I thought I would be.  I see a double dip in the future.  For me the best extras would have to be the focus points.  These go into a lot of different aspects of production such as filming with the IMAX cameras or designing the Bat Pod.  These clock in at around 1 hour so there is still a fair amount of material there.  The Batman Tech feature is interesting and goes into how the gadgets Batman uses are based in reality.  Batman Unmasked I found kind of dumb it;'s basically psychiatrists analyzing Bruce Wayne.  For me it was kind of silly.  BD-Live was up when I wrote this review and there are some interesting things in there, but not really enough yet for me to say you should spend time there.  I watched a feature on how they created the sound for the Bat-Pod.  It was interesting, but was doing a lot of buffering at the time making it difficult to watch.  Overall, this is a solid effort on the extras but I think there is a lot more around the corner.

8 out of 10

Overall

I can't recommend this film highly enough!   The picture quality is mind blowing and is the reason why we own a Blu-ray player.  The sound is fantastic and there are some great extras included.  The Blu-ray copy of this film is closing in on selling 2 million units which is unheard of.  So go out now and buy a copy before it's too late.

9.5 out of 10

Highly Recommended.

The Dark Knight Blu-ray is available now from Amazon.com