The Dark Knight, 4.5 stars
Watched the biggest movie hit of the summer today in a cheap matinee show. Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is an excellent movie, but neither perfect nor worth the #1 position it currently holds at the IMDB rankings.
It’s impossible to discuss the second movie of the rebooted Batman franchise without paying attention to the late Heath Ledger. His take on Joker is breathtaking. This is not the jolly and impeccably dressed prankster of Jack Nicholson. No, this Joker is a grungy and unpredictable madman in deteriorating makeup. One whose lizard-like manners and soft voice cause shivers from the first on-screen moment. One who embraces chaos without any plan, happy to push the world to the edge and give it a final shove into oblivion. One that brings to mind the best depictions of Joker in the graphic novels: Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum. I can’t guess who he’ll be against in the “supporting actor” category in the Academy Awards next year, but would bet on a posthumous victory.
Do I really look like a man with a plan, Harvey? I don’t have a plan. The mob has plans, the cops have plans. You know what I am, Harvey? I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do if I caught one. I just do things. I’m a wrench in the gears. I hate plans. Yours, theirs, everyone’s. Maroni has plans. Gordon has plans. Schemers trying to control their worlds. I am not a schemer. I show schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.
Ledger’s performance is so strong that it almost consistently threatens the other actors. Christian Bale plays Bruce Wayne effortlessly, and without any real faults. Somehow I found his growling “Batman voice” grating almost immediately and managed not to shed my discomfort during the two and half hours the movie lasts. The two new faces - Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal - fit into the ensemble well. And the latter’s strong presence causes Mrs. Cruise from Batman Begins to be forgotten pretty much instantly. Cillian Murphy (Scarecrow from the first movie) gets a whole ten seconds screentime, which seems almost criminal. Though in a film as busy as this one the scenes are likely better off as dvd extras than part of the continuity.
There are no post-credit scenes, but having grossed gigantically in the box office there’s absolutely no doubt that part three is inevitable.
Why so serious?
Dark Knight is indeed a dark movie. There’s plenty of death, madness, disappointment, violence and betrayal in the plot. And not nearly all of it is of superhuman origin. This is not a movie whose story is easily overcome in future installments.
Dark Knight is also of a truly rare breed - a sequel that exceeds its predecessor. And in the Batman Begins’ case this is by no means a small feat.
Go watch Dark Knight. Just don’t expect to smile much afterwards.
Doug:
Ledger isn’t that good. He’s simpering and irritating more than creepy or threatening. I kept wanting him to shut up and DO something. The only reason people are clamoring about him is that he was young and stupid and he managed to kill himself (by accident, yet, which makes it all the more ridiculous). If he hadn’t died, the movie would be Eckhart’s. In fact, the film wouldn’t have been such an overlong, disjointed mess (didn’t you notice how NOTHING happened after Batman and Rachel fell from the penthouse party to the car? Nolan lost me right there: that was terrible screenwriting and editing.) if they’d skipped the Joker as a character altogether. The Joker wasn’t a menace, he was a JOKE. Rambling, incoherent, and utterly ineffectual.
August 4, 2008, 21:48lavonardo:
I disagree on both the Joker and Ledger, but I bet you expected that.
Joker was both a catalyst (pushing other people to do things, such as Harvey Dent finally losing it) as well as doing things himself. True, he’s not all action, all the time, but I found him a genuinely good part of the plot, and a believably deranged character. A very good thing in the movie (which I missed in the entry) is the fact that Joker’s origin is not established nor given time to develop - the birth of one villain is enough per movie. I don’t consider Joker just a joke - while at times he was ineffectual, he did produce a high body count and a plethora of plans (even though he confessed hating any).
Ledger in the role of Joker is a matter of taste, obviously. I found his portrayal of Joker creepy, and do not credit his death for the accolades. At least the few pictures I’d seen of the movie before Ledger’s passing were enough to convince that we have a new Joker in town.
The few misses in the script (such as the terribly handled penthouse scene you noted) were indeed the reason why I skipped the final half of a star. In addition to Cillian Murphy’s Scarecrow, Lucius Fox was terribly underused - and his sudden attack of conscience was far from convincing.
August 4, 2008, 22:16Otto Sinisalo:
“Don’t expect to smile much afterwards”? I had a shit-eating grin on my face three straight days after seeing DK. Fucking legendary.
August 11, 2008, 12:10lavonardo:
Ah, I failed to differentiate between two things
a) movie being bleak -> no inclination to smile
b) movie being good -> definite need to smile.
In my case the last five minutes or so of Dark Knight were case a), and that dominated matters.
Was very pissed off on account NOT having Ledger present in the inevitable sequel (after all, Joker did survive), and that certainly added to the lack of smiling.
Legendary, that’s for sure.
August 11, 2008, 13:22