Ways the Dark Knight could be improved
Realism?
1. The bank raid
The school bus just happens to break through the wall at the exact
moment that the last remaining bank robber is holding a gun on the
Joker. How is everything so perfectly choreographed that the robber
ends up in the exact spot he needs to be to get hit by the bus? Not
realistic at all. Then, the school bus drives out of the bank at the
exact right moment to join up with a huge procession of other school
buses! And there just happens to be a space for the bus to enter. For
this to happen, everything from the beginning to the end of the raid
would have to happen with split-second precision and timing with no
room for error.
Impossible, as there are too many variables at play. For example,
the gunshot-toting bank manager. That was unforeseen and put a crimp in
their plan. Yet despite this, everything *still* runs like clockwork. I
also disliked the way the Bank robbers explained the plot as they set
up the raid, talking about who gets a cut and about the Joker. Was this
necessary? This kind of ‘hey folks, this is what’s happening!’ dialogue
plagues the whole film. Another prime example is when Ramirez tells
Gordon about the Joker card with three sets of DNA. Gordon responds:
‘The Joker is trying to tell us who he’s targeting’. Well, no *beep*
That is OBVIOUS.
2. Other bank raid nonsense
i) Why was the alarm that can disable the entire security system of
the bank on the roof - the easiest place for would-be criminals to get
at it?
ii) Why abseil onto the roof from across the street? This is the
least inconspicuous way to get into the bank?! Furthermore, breaking
that window would lead to glass showering down onto the street, which
would attract attention, would it not?
iii) Where are the Bank’s
security guards?
iv) At the beginning of the raid, there are screaming
customers everywhere. Near the end of the raid, the customers have
mysteriously disappeared. Where did they go? Running off into the
street to alert the cops?
v) Are we to believe that The Joker’s mob
commandeered an entire fleet of school buses and that’s why everything
was done with such precision?
3. Scarecrow scene
Batman jumps from the top level of the parking structure and lands
on an escaping SUV. What happens? The SUV is crushed AND the impact of
Batman makes it stop. GIVE ME A BREAK! Batman is only a mere mortal. He
would have bounced off the car and would have made a minor dent at
best. He was only about 50 feet up, yet when he lands *on his legs*, he
is somehow strong enough to crush the entire roof of the vehicle!
4. The Hong Kong section
Overblown and overwritten. There are simpler ways to grab Lau and
bring him back to the US. Why grab him in his office building?! Does he
live there? I think not. Batman could’ve nabbed Lau *far easier* at his
residence/on the street/in his car etc with less personal risk and
expensive planning.
5. The Rachel/Dent/Wayne triangle
I hated the fact that Rachel was in a serious relationship with
Dent yet she still kissed Wayne on the balcony at that party. This made
me lose respect for her character because she is basically cheating on
Dent. Rachel is supposed to be this strong, moral woman with
inalienable principles, yet she cheats on someone she clearly loves.
The triangle didn’t need to be written this way; it would have been
better if Bruce went in for the kiss and Rachel pulled back.
6. Commissioner Loeb’s death
Right at the moment Gordon arrives with news of the threat, Loeb
decides to have drink, and dies right at the moment Gordon is figuring
out where the DNA could have come from. Okay, it’s possible but it’s
just so contrived! Let’s assume that Loeb only found out about the
threat when Gordon arrived. How ridiculous is this?! Surely if the
Police Commissioner’s life is at risk, you want to let him know
*straight away* just in case something happens? Gordon should have
phoned Loeb and filled him in. This is just logical behavior,
especially in the cell-phone age.
7. Bruce’s party
How does Bruce know of the triple threat to Dent/Loeb and the
judge? There is no way he can know. If Gordon was going to call anyone,
he would call Dent on his cell-phone to let him know, would he not?
Dent has to have one, surely?! Batman is set in the cell phone age so
the idea that Dent doesn’t have one is ridiculous. Also, Bruce was at
the party with everyone else, so the chances of his listening to a
police radio are slim at best. Besides, what would prompt him to be
listening to police radio broadcasts in the middle of a party? On top
of this, he manages to get to Dent and hide him seconds before the
Joker appears. How convenient!
9. The Joker crashing Bruce’s party
Why wait till Dent is at a party in Bruce Wayne’s penthouse *after*
announcing to the world that Dent is a target? Of course, the whole
thing is set-up so that the Joker can throw Rachel off the roof. This
could have been written in a far more realistic way. People will argue
that the Joker is an attention whore - okay, I can accept that to an
extent, but it seems like a hell of a lot of trouble to go to find Dent
when if he really wanted to kill Dent he could have done it in a far
easier manner.
10. Rachel and Batman falling off the roof
I can just about buy the fact that the fall was broken by Batman’s
wings, but come on! No sign of any injury to Rachel? She wasn’t even
winded. Ever so slightly beyond the realms of possibility I feel.
11. Fingerprints on the bullet sequence
This doesn’t make sense because the fingerprint would be on the
*shell casing* not the bullet itself! The bullet is encased in the
shell-casing, which is discarded (along with fingerprints) when the
bullet is fired. Furthermore, Bruce arrives in the room and finds those
men tied up at the exact moment the shooting is going to take place.
How convenient.
12. Commissioner Loeb’s funeral
We’re expected to believe that with hundreds of Cops around and
ridiculously tight security that the Joker managed to worm his way into
the Police honour guard?! Didn’t anyone notice the guy with the huge
scars on his face? Granted, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility,
but with everyone *expecting* some kind of assassination attack and the
Cops on alert, it’s just laughable that this could take place.
13. Gordon’s faked death
Why would you put your family through the worst trauma imaginable
when they were not even at risk?! Gordon says he faked his death
because his family was at risk but this is utter nonsense. Why? Because
the Joker thinks Gordon is dead. If he’s dead, he’s not a threat ergo
his family is not at risk. Even if Gordon thought his family *could* be
at risk, why not just get them out of the city and the state and into
protective custody? Surely this is better than making them think he was
dead?
14. The Gotham chase
Someone please explain exactly how a multi-tonne truck flips over
so easily after snagging on some metal wire?! It’s a great action
set-piece but once again it’s let down by bad writing in my view. Also,
Batman has such prodigious control over the Bat-bike that he can
execute a perfect 180 turn at speed using a wall as leverage, but when
he’s charging the Joker he loses all control and flips the bike?! The
Joker fires a bazooka missile at the SWAT van carrying Dent. If not for
the tumbler getting in the way and taking the hit, Dent would have
died. Again, this is all apparently part of the Joker’s fiendish plan
to…get caught.
15. The Joker’s escape
The Joker is Gotham’s most notorious and wanted criminal, yet they
leave him *uncuffed* and guarded by a single Cop?! And of course, the
Cop just happens to have a suspect temperament, which the Joker
manipulates. If the Joker is in a locked room, why would there need to
be a Cop inside the room with him?! Also, why was there no one
stationed outside guarding the room? We can surmise that there wasn’t
anyone guarding because if there was a fight going on, surely the guard
would have heard it from outside? Again, everything happens at exactly
the right time. All this is dependant upon having a single cop guarding
the joker inside the room who loses his cool, allowing the Joker a
chance to escape. And of course, the guy with a bomb in his stomach
just happens to be captured and in jail at the exact time the Joker
needs him.
16. The idea that the Joker ‘planned to be caught’
After Rachel dies, Gordon is angry at himself and says ‘he wanted
us to lock him up in the MCU’. So, let me get this straight: the
massive chase scene through Gotham which culminated in Gordon capturing
the Joker was really part of the Joker’s grand scheme as he ‘planned’
to get caught?! The Joker even explained *at length* that he was not
someone who planned things, yet he is apparently the greatest criminal
tactician that ever lived!
17. Reese revealing the true identity of Batman
So, Reese goes on TV and says he’ll reveal the truth about Batman.
Meanwhile, the scene is intercut with the Joker in a warehouse burning
his half of the mob’s cash. Then, *in the very next scene*, the Joker
is calling into the TV show and threatening to blow up a hospital if
someone doesn’t kill Reese! How does the Joker go from burning money in
a warehouse, to finding a TV, watching the show then calling up with
his hospital threat in a matter of hours?
So, if the Joker decides to blow up a hospital in response to
Reese’s TV ploy, how does he and his mob manage to rig the place with
gas canisters and explosives *in broad daylight* without being seen?
Come on! This is beyond ridiculous. And it’s not about suspension of
disbelief, it’s about not treating your audience like morons. There is
*no way* on earth that in this day and age of heightened security that
an entire hospital could be rigged to blow in broad daylight and no one
saw a thing! The entire building was pulverized – imagine the amount of
explosives and petrol canisters needed to do that kind of damage. And
again, what’s going on with the timeline? The Joker is burning money;
somehow finds a TV to watch; calls in and threatens Reese; wires a
hospital and visits Dent all in the space of the same day and seemingly
within a few hours?
18. Sal Maroni’s confession
After Gordon visits Dent, Maroni just happens to be in the hospital
*right outside Dent’s room* and just happens to have an attack of
conscience and tells Gordon where to find the Joker?!
19. Harvey Dent’s turn to the dark side
For a start, the whole Dent story should have been saved for Part 3
instead of just being crammed into TDK. There wasn’t enough time to
develop his fall into evil; it all happens in about 5 minutes. For 90
minutes, Dent is portrayed as this morally upstanding man of principle,
but Dent goes from crime fighting golden boy with a an unshakeable
dedication to doing good to a psychopathic murderer, and worse -
potential child-murderer - in the space of 24 hours. Why? Because his
girlfriend dies and he becomes disfigured? No, wait - it’s because the
Joker - as well as being the greatest criminal tactician that ever
lived - is also the greatest psychologist that ever lived, and a few
lines of his cod philosophy at Dent’s bedside is enough to tip him over
the edge and into child-murderer mindset.
20. Batman’s sonar scheme
Lucius Fox says something along the lines of ‘You took my sonar
concept and applied it to every phone in the city’. Someone explain to
me how this is possible! Given the sonar technology has to be embedded
in the phone itself (as we saw when Fox was in Hong Kong and left his
sonar phone at security), are we expected to believe that Batman has
the technology manually implanted into *every cell-phone in the city” –
a city which, incidentally, has 30 million inhabitants, according to
Fox. If it wasn’t manual, then how is this mass cell-phone scheme to be
explained?
21. The ferry face-off
When exactly did the Joker have time to rig two ferries with 100
barrels of fuel without anyone noticing? The whole idea is completely
laughable and unrealistic, with no concern for the logistics of how
something like that would be set up. Once again, for the sake of a
‘cool’ scene, the writers threw logic out of the window. But of course,
the Joker is such a genius criminal, he planned this down to the last
details (despite apparently now being a ‘planner’).
22. Batman’s sonar vision
When batman faces the Joker, his sonar vision momentarily fails and
this causes him to lose his bearings, allowing the Joker to attack.
Why?! Earlier on in the sequence, *Batman switches between sonar vision
and normal vision*. When the sonar fails, why doesn’t he just use his
own vision?!
23. The Joker overpowering Batman
After Batman’s sonar vision fails, the Joker somehow beats the crap
out of Batman and manages to hold him down with a steel bar. Given the
fact that Batman has been portrayed as almost superhuman for the
preceding two hours (including easily subduing the Joker during
interrogation), how is it possible that all of a sudden the Joker is
stronger. In Batman begins, BW takes on about 20+ ninjas and none of
them get the better of him. In TDK, all it takes to down Batman is
steel bar and couple of rottweilers!
24. Dent at the hospital
After being marked for death, almost killed and then disfigured,
why is Dent left alone at the hospital with no one guarding him?
25. Poor editing
i) How did the Joker leave the party after Batman and Rachel went
off the roof? Dent is still locked in a cupboard somewhere and lots of
party guests at risk. Should this not have been tied up with perhaps a
five second shot?
ii) The Joker taunts the cop guarding him and goads
him into a fight. Cut to the next scene, the Joker has him as a
hostage. Why cut out the scene with *how* he overpowered this guy?
Surely this would be a scene than fans want to see?!
iii) Dent and
Rachel are kidnapped by the Joker’s henchmen. Why didn’t we see it?
Again, we are just told it happened instead being shown what happened.
26. The kidnapping of Dent
It is standard police procedure to allow a senior public figure
whose life has been threatened to go to visit his girlfriend seconds
after being pursued by a madman hellbent on killing him? Is it also
good police practice to let him go without any kind of police escort.
The fact that the Joker’s vast network of henchmen were *not* captured
and may still pose a threat did not seem to matter.
27. Gordon’s negligence
i) The new Police Commissioner has the apparent foresight to fake
his own death, but he cannot foresee the possibility that the joker may
try and escape. Of course, there’s no way anyone could have predicted
the Joker might have some nefarious plan up his sleeve. After all, it’s
not like he’d planned anything up to that point in the story.
ii)
Gordon botches the security job of protecting the Mayor *big time*.
iii) Gordon allows the city’s most dangerous criminal to be guarded by
a single cop. This is after he’s gone to great lengths to capture the
Joker! And let’s not forget, at this point, Gordon is not Police
Commissioner. The buck stops with him, and the way the Joker was
guarded would have been down to him.
iv) So full of self-congratulatory bravado, Gordon just let’s Dent
leave the scene of the Joker’s capture without assigning any police
escorts, thus leading to Dent being kidnapped. v) Gordon just swallows
the ‘let’s blame it all on Batman’ idea without question, ignoring the
fact that the so-called 5 deaths could easily be blamed on any of the
Joker’s henchmen. Gordon is too busy with composing his poetic
monologue to actually think like a Cop.
28. Pointless ending
The film tries to make Batman into a mythical anti-hero with his
sacrifice at the end, but the whole thing is moot really - Batman will
be ‘hunted’ for about 10 minutes and then he’ll be Bruce Wayne again,
so he won’t be in any danger! Anyway - what has changed since the
beginning of the film? Gordon tells Dent that the official policy is to
‘arrest the vigilante known as Batman on sight’. Is this not the same
situation at the end of the film?!
29. Lau’s immunity to the effects of fire
Lau doesn’t even scream whilst he’s being burnt alive!
30. Evacuation of the hospital
If you examine how things take place within the timeframe of the
movie, it appears that entire hospital (Gotham’s biggest) was seemingly
evacuated within the space of a few hours.
i) The Joker calls into the
TV show saying he’ll blow up a hospital. This happens during the day.
ii) Seconds later, Gordon hears this and barks orders about evacuating
the hospital.
iii) A scene or two later, we find the hospital pretty
much evacuated and *surprise surprise*, Dent is the only person left!
The point here is, it’s still daytime, so the evacuation of such a huge
hospital took no time at all apparently. Not realistic AT ALL. Not even
slightly comic-book realistic.
31. Maroni’s miraculous recovery
Batman throws Maroni to the street from 3 stories up. We hear the
crunch as he lands feet first. Literally a day or so later, Maroni is
walking easily with just the use a cane. No plaster cast or anything
like that.
32. Dent and Maroni crash
Dent has Maroni trapped in his car, and instead of shooting Maroni,
he kills the driver of the car, causing huge crash?! Half of Dent’s
face is melted off and he must be in serious pain, yet he decides the
best way to further his goal is to cause a car crash in which he could
conceivably be killed?!
33. The Joker’s philosophy
As the Joker explains to Dent at the hospital, he doesn’t have a
plan. He goes into detail about how he detests people with plans and
how he’s all about chaos and anarchy. But wait, everything in the film
completely negates his character because the story paints him as the
greatest criminal tactician and planning mastermind that ever lived!
For him to control *everything* to such a degree and have everything
work *perfectly * with no mistakes, despite lots unforeseen events
taking place, means that he must have planned everything to last
detail. This is the reasoning of those defend the Joker’s apparent
omnipotence, but it conflicts with his own philosophy! I’m sorry, but
this is terrible writing.
34. The Scarecrow
Ridiculous treatment of the character after BB. made him into some
weak caricature. When he stepped out of the van wearing the scarecrow
mask, it just seemed out of place. And his dialogue was lame. Cut out
the whole section and get on with story already. It was imperative we
see that scene but not important to see how the Joker escaped the
party/Dent and Rachel being kidnapped?
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