Record Label: Warner Bros Records
Genre: Film Score
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There’s really no need to discuss the plot of The Dark Knight at this point. You’ve all seen the movie by now, and it’s about to cross the $400 million mark. Everyone is talking about Heath Ledger’s brilliant and haunting performance as the Joker. Some people are talking about Batman’s goofy Clint Eastwood voice. Regardless of what people are saying, I think the Dark Night is an amazing movie and one of the bests of the year. Something that should be talked about of course is the film score to the movie. Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard join forces again and deliver a very memorable score. At least to me anyway.

Each composer brings something different to the score. Zimmer provides the creepy theme to the Joker, and Howard gives us the Harvey Dent theme. Both very memorable and iconic pieces. The Joker’s theme is especially iconic because it sounds like if a schizophrenic psychopath made the music. The motif is just really haunting and every time you heard it on the screen, you knew the Joker was around. In a way, the theme reminds me of the Jaws theme. I like what Howard did with the Harvey Dent theme as well. He made it sound like a heroic, all-American type of theme. But there’s just something not right about the motif, it sounds like you know that there’s something bad that’s going to happen to him.

The theme from the last movie, Molossus comes back in full force and I couldn’t be happier about that. It was the best thing about the Batman Begins score, and glad to see it featured in pretty much all the action sequences. The tracks Like a Dog Chasing Cars and Introduce a Little Anarchy feature that theme the most. I thought the Dark Knight score was ten time better than the Batman Begins score. Batman Begins score just felt too quiet & dark for me. This score has that moodiness and dark tones to the score pieces, but there’s a lot more action cues & motifs that are more recognizable. This has been one of my favorite scores to listen to this summer and so far, the year!

Bottom Line: One of best scores of the year!
Notable Tracks: Why So Serious, I’m Not A Hero, Like a Dog Chasing Cars, Agent of Chaos, Introduce a Little Anarchy
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