Customer Rating:  
Summary: skim, don't buy
Comment: The sad truth about novelizations is that they start out handicapped. Usually the writer is working from the script rather than the finished film. You can't get the book published close enough to the film's release date otherwise.
That explains both the rushed copy-editing (for example, "He looked first at the *prisoner's* ferry, *laying* maybe a hundred yards off the port bow..." -- note the singular possessive and the incorrect verb) and the obvious 'factual' errors (for example, the ferry radios work and the captains contact each other, which was wisely cut from the film version to heighten tension and remove a plot hole) in Dennis O'Neil's adaptation of "The Dark Knight." It also helps explain the stripped feel to the narrative. Because O'Neil didn't know how the actors would perform their lines, he presents dialogue with hardly any attempt to convey its sound or pacing, and because he didn't know what the costumes, sets, blocking, and special effects would look like, he skimps on describing both appearances and action scenes.
Unfortunately, a book written that way is like a stool with only two and a half legs; it wobbles something awful. For me, Dennis O'Neil's version of "The Dark Knight" feels like a comic script before it's turned over the the artist. Half of the story is, therefore, missing. This is understandable -- O'Neil wrote comics long before he ventured into novels -- but I find it sad that he didn't stretch to master a new form.
On the good side, O'Neil provides backstory for Harvey Dent, explaining why he's so desperate for the world to make sense and be fair. He also makes explicit some of the film's subtext on terrorism, torture, and the ethical lines Bruce is sliding over. But the backstory elements front-weight the book, leaving nowhere near enough page time to convey the full impact of the main plot, and especially shortchanging the climax and denouement.
Overall, "The Dark Knight" is a tolerable way to kill a few hours, but I wouldn't advise buying it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Dark Knight
Comment: Dennis O'Neil really knows his Dark Knight and this novelization of the movie adds substance even if you've seen the movie. You discover what happened to the Scarecrow in between the two movies and other bits that extends the movie's storyline. O'Neil captures the internal thoughts of Bruce Wayne/Batman, something that a movie can't quite do. Well done for a "novelization."
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very Sub-par for O'Neil
Comment: When I had bought the book, Iwas expecting to be as well written as O'Neil's adaptation of Batman Begins and Batman: Knightfall, but was sadly disappointed. The novel is very bland and almost seems rushed. This is a serious decline in quality in O'neil's work. Here's hoping he is able to redeem himself. Still, the book gives a liitle more backround on characters from the film, specifically Harvey Dent and adds in some extra scenes that were most likely cut from the final version of the film.
Still, the book is decent enough, and any Batfan should pick it up just to have it in their Batcollection or for those who want a little more backround on events from the film..
PARTY ON, DUDES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Blatant Rush Job
Comment: This book is abysmal. It's poorly written, shallow and feels rushed. A lot of the subtle moments from the film are totally removed , (for example, the tone of the Jokers voice, his walk, just how terrifying he is - all these details add up to make a mental picture in your mind which is part of what reading fiction is all about. O'Neil describes none of them, the Joker could be a postman for all the info we get.)
We get no inclination about how the characters are feeling, or how they do things - much of the dialogue from the film is reported with little emotion and it feels as if Denny O Neil was rushing his way through the Nolan script in order to meet a tight deadline. The action scenes are dull and overall the writing just feels stale, it doesn't jump off the page at all.
A sample of the turgid prose - he describes Comissioner Leob's death as '...he made a few gurgling sounds and within seconds was dead.' Talk about sucking the drama out of a scene.
There's also page after page of boring exposition. Fair enough, the story of what Crane got up to after 'Begins' is a neat inclusion, but it bogs down the book and gets in the way of the actual TDK story. O' Neil seems to do this for more than one of the characters, even the infodump for Bruce Wayne is annoying. The events of the film don't begin until you're a quater of the way through the book, the first couple of chapters should've been called 'In case you haven't read Batman Begins...'
Poor. Only gets a star because I'm a Batman fanatic, otherwise I would've stopped reading it after the first chapter.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Movie deserves better
Comment: Dennis "Denny" O'Neill has been one of the principal architects for Batman over the past thirty years, doing everything from comic writer to editor to novelization author. His adaptation of Batman Begins was quite solid, so I had high hopes for this, which I read--and recommend you read ONLY--after seeing the movie.
Put bluntly, the master is either losing his touch or rushed this into print. Despite being one of the sources for the characterization of the Joker, O'Neill fails to capture any of Ledger's manic intensity, the deep depravity, and utterly chaotic nature of his violent streak. Granted, Ledger's portrayal is stunning and hard to capture with the written word, but O'Neill should do better with a character he revitalized back in the 1970s (The Joker's Five Way Revenge, for instance).
There is very little back story added, so much of what remains unexplained in the movie is unexplained here. There's a back story added for Harvey Dent, but I'm not sure whether it actually explains anything beyond what the movie does. It does make Bruce's affection for Rachel Dawes more understandable: It is less love than a deep need for her, he is almost creepy in his obsession for her.
Obviously, the action scenes are hard to put into writing, so I forgive O'Neill for making the finale of the movie so condensed (and leaves out the climactic scene in all the trailers of Gordon smashing the Batsignal). However, he inexplicably fails to capture the intensity of the scene inside the ferries at the end of the movie.
The book would be shorter if it did not begin with about 60 pages dealing with material from Batman Begins or the animated Gotham Knight.
That the book was rushed is indicated, I think, by glaring typos that made it seem as though it was scanned in from a typewriter or pages. For instance, in one sentence the "real deal" (referring to the real Batman rather than the wanna-bes" reads as "red deal." Things like this are irritating but also indicative of a broader on-the-cheap feel of the whole novelization.
Of course, without the DVD, this is your only shot, since DC isn't releasing a comic book adaptation.
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