If there was anything underrated in The Dark Knight, it would be the hand-to-hand combat scenes.
People like to say that Nolan can't direct action scenes. Sure, this was somewhat true with Batman Begins, where the camerawork was arguably shaky in order to mask less than stellar choreography. However, in The Dark Knight and subsequent films, Nolan really improved upon shooting and staging action.
Here, in The Dark Knight, while it may not share the stylized feel of Hong Kong action movies, the fight choreography is effectively brutalist and efficient. It may be clunky at times, but Nolan's intent of de-aestheticized violence is vividly captured in The Dark Knight.
As the Cinema Blend review (http://www.cinemablend.com/reviews/The- ... -3238.html) from 2008 points out:
People like to say that Nolan can't direct action scenes. Sure, this was somewhat true with Batman Begins, where the camerawork was arguably shaky in order to mask less than stellar choreography. However, in The Dark Knight and subsequent films, Nolan really improved upon shooting and staging action.
Here, in The Dark Knight, while it may not share the stylized feel of Hong Kong action movies, the fight choreography is effectively brutalist and efficient. It may be clunky at times, but Nolan's intent of de-aestheticized violence is vividly captured in The Dark Knight.
As the Cinema Blend review (http://www.cinemablend.com/reviews/The- ... -3238.html) from 2008 points out:
...most of what’s going on in The Dark Knight is mental. It’s not that there isn’t action, there’s plenty of it, but even when Batman is running around punching people in the head or racing through the streets on his incredible, visually stunning gadgets, it’s the psychology of what’s happening pushes the story. Because of that, the problems Nolan had directing some of the action sequences in Batman Begins, are utterly erased here. Batman lurks in the shadows dispatching bad guys with a single punch. There are no extended, complicated fight scenes for him to botch because quite frankly the movie doesn’t need them. There’s plenty of fighting, but it happens in quick encounters staged one after another with a kind of lyrical precision I haven’t seen in anything outside of the action-poetry in last year’s The Bourne Ultimatum. When Batman is forced into an extended showdown, it takes the form of a brutal, economical beating, with punches landed with vicious force and battles being waged by men who have made themselves blunt instruments. What makes the action so arresting is the force of will behind it, the philosophical battle driving it. You’ll be on the edge of your seat for every single moment, whether it’s a simple conversation at Bruce Wayne’s office, or a balls to the wall brawl inside a gangster-infested Hong Kong skyscraper.