Grade: A
Yes, yes. I know I am the last person in the world to watch The Dark Knight. A homeless guy on Peachtree, two orphans from Myanmar, and a blind psychotic at Arkham Asylum have already given me the Millhouse treatment.
I shouldn't even have a movie blog if I won't watch Batman Begins till Monday night, but in my defense, I work weekend nights and would only watch it on IMAX.
But moving ahead, by now, you've probably been Dark Knighted out by all the fantastic reviews, the fanboys fainting, and the calls for an Oscar nod for Mr. Heath Ledger or the way I will always remember him -- Patrick Verona in the chick-flick guys can like 10 Things I Hate About You.
***SPOILER ALERT*** (just in case you're a bigger loser than I am)
Do I have the cajones to disagree with everyone else and say this was less than very good/great film? I do, but I'm also not a liar. Because even though it does come short to living completely up to all the hype, it definitely comes damn close.
Before I shower the film with praises thay may sound like a broken record by this point, here are a couple of the minor qualms I had with the film. Did Scarecrow really need to be in this one? It comes close to Spiderman 3's too-many-villains disease, and as fun and breaktaking the scene was, it wasn't necessary. That being said, I never actually felt the film was too long, a swift 150 minutes that made the painful 90 minute waiting-in-line moments worth it.
Also, the Lt. Gordon dying, but not really storyline -- I mean, really? Really?? I'm surprised more reviews haven't brought this up. It seemed like a cheap trick from a mediocre Broadway play or a 60s sitcom ruse. Besides, didn't the cop and people around him clearly see the blood stains or lack thereof?
I love Christian Bale to death, but I wasn't sure how much more I could take his gutteral performance as Batman. It was said that Bruce Wayne's development was sacrificed for Batman's development and for me to hear those grunting words that makes Rosie Perez sound comprehensible.
Outside of these issues (and trust me, they're not huge), The Dark Knight is everything I hoped a superhero movie could and should be. Forget campiness, big explosions, and cool gadgets. Comic book heroes speak to the heart of the matter -- the deeply philosophical questions that make us who we are -- heroes or villains, good or bad. Underneath the bright colors, there are a lot of provocative questions and issues for most superhero movies. To ignore all that is like sex without love. Shut up -- seriously, think about it. It's deep. Trust me.
Christopher Nolan is a genius, coming into his own in the action adventure film, showing once again that he is antithesis of M. Night Shyamalan. Whereas Shymalan was thought to be the next Spielberg of our times and turned out to be the Sinéad O'Connor of cinema -- a quintessential one hint wonder, Nolan shows that we were only scraping his genius in Momento.
In terms of Rachel Dawes' character, I'm glad Maggie Gyllenhaal took the reigns of the character, giving Dawes the extra oomph she needed to be a tough DA in Gotham's streets. Katie Holmes is better served as the girl next door when Tom Cruise is your neighbor. That being said, I'm ecstatic that Dawes was killed off, because even though Gyllenhaal did all she could, it seems like the Nolans don't have the Tarentino gift of writing strong female characters into his scripts.
The lighting and sound editing were superb, as I expect to take a few easy wins at The Big Award show next year, but I do not understand the whole fascination with the set. When you think about it, most of the sets were not designed. If you look closely at what's around, that's just Chicago. Seriously. It only seems darker because it was at night and again, the lighting crew was great.
And now on to the film's most incredible feature. Even if the directing was horrendous and they were working on a 10,000 dollar budget, the acting drove this movie. Take the same cast and pluck them into Sex and the City, and I promise you, Michael Caine will play the sexiest Carrie Bradshow you will ever see grace any screen. Since we're on the topic, Caine and Morgan Freeman never share a scene once in Dark Knight, but they play the father/mother role to perfection. They both give the dark film a light-heartedness it needed and Wayne a touch of wisdom whether he took it or not.
For all the talk that Ledger receives for being an actor that submerges himself into every role he plays, people seem to forget Bale's tactics. Despite merging into lead roles for major blockbusters, he remains one of the most underrated actors today, as we often skim over his name to the Willem Defoes, Hugh Jackmans, and Heath Ledgers that play opposite him. As I noted before, I'm not a fan of his Batman performance, which is okay since most of the Batman scenes were stuntmen anyway. But the little time that we see him as Bale, his depiction of a conflicted superhero translates well. IMAX helped.
Gary Oldman -- another unheralded performance by the vet. As Lt./Comm. Gordon, he is the most realistic depiction of a man in reality, who hopes that safety for his family and goodness in society can exist together. He has no extroadinary powers, no riches beyond his imagination, or a tragic experience that has scarred him his entire life. He knows his limits, but he's not afraid to break them. He knows his values, and he's not afraid to hold them. If he's not every man, he's at least the man that we hope we grow up to be.
If Ledger deserves an Oscar nod, so does Aaron Eckhart, another underrated artist that deserves top billing in future Eckhart movies. From making The Paycheck watchable to stealing the show in Thank You For Smoking, he has always been one of my favs, an acting that doesn't reach for gimics or over-the top antics to prove his point. In my humble opinion, he was the best actor in The Dark Knight, giving us a sense of his passion gone right and his passion gone wrong. And even though Comm. Gordon is what every man hope we grow up to be, Dent may be the man that we sadly become. Unable to be completely resolute, not understanding where to draw the line between good and evil, and not having the self-control to hold strong in the face of tragedy. And for that, he isn't Gordon or Wayne (as we're not). And for that, he's nowhere close to The Joker either (as we're not). And true to his name, we dont know where we are or who we are. There's a reason why the most common complain about your friends or enemies alike is that we're all a little hypocritical, a little two-faced.
And finally, we come to teh critically acclaimed Joker, played by Heath Ledger. The toughest thing about watching his role were the inevitable thoughts that a) he's dead and b) this is supposed to be what one of the greatest performances ever, and c) this may have led to his death. So from this, you either become a bandwagoner, praising it as exactly the greatest performance you've ever seen and that anything less than an Oscar nod would be a crime. Or you enjoy being different, saying it dones't match the hype, but if you think about it -- would any performance in the history of film ever match the hype that we all put this film and his performance under? Probably not.
As for me, I fall somewhere in between. He steals the scene once he enters it and you hope for him to return when he leaves it. One moment, he scares the living shit out of you and the next, he fills you up with uneasy laughter. But for me to praise him unconditionally would be to deny having ever watched great movies with great actors with great performances. I can see him receiving an Oscar nod, and he's well-deserving of one, though I would not be shocked if he were overlooked. The point is this -- we still have a good five and a half months of movies left in the year, with most of the Academy favorites coming out in December. Just for our movie-goers' sake, I hope Ledger doesn't win the award; I want to see him get beat out by at least five better performances. And this is no sick way of disrespecting Ledger, this is simply my selfish desire to see better films made with better performances shown.
***Rant Alert***
The premmature obsession fanboys, teenage girls, and adults who don't watch enough movies have over Ledger is mind-boggling. As I was leaving the theater, four 20-something guys behind me literally said, "We need to sit here till the end of the credits, in honor of Heath." And the response was..."Amen." What? Seriously? First of all, he's an actor who gets paid millions of dollars to dress up and act like a clown. And secondly, you didn't know him and he didn't know you, and either way, I doubt he affected your life in anyway. Older actors, boasting a filmography longer than 15 films -- I can understand. But what was it in Ledger's career outside of The Joker and/or Brokeback Mountain made him the Deniro of your life. Was it his 10 minutes in Monster's Ball? Or his second-billing in terrible Brothers Grimm? What about the box office flops in The Four Feathers, Lords of Dogtown, and Cassanova. But I digress...my remarks for our undying love for celebrities must wait till another post, or even another blog.
In conclusion, The Dark Knight didn't change my life or force me to answer tough questions underneath my psyche. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it again in the theaters and I'm not even sure if I'm going to buy it when it comes out on DVD. And no, it does not and should skyrocket into the top 5 movies of all time.
But folks, it's not the Bible and Nolan never meant to be God. It's just a movie. And for that, it excels beyond your wildest imagination. TDK may never reach your expectations (or at least my expectations), but like I said, it sure comes damn close.
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