So, I gave in and went to see "Dark Knight"
I've been to the movies more times in the past month than I had been in the previous year. I usually go by myself in the middle of the day, when the theatres are empty or at least almost clear. Several nights ago, I finally saw Dark Knight.
I have mixed feelings about several elements in the movie, although in the final analysis I did feel that it's a tour-de-force.
I went in determined to make a valiant effort not to let Heath Ledger's death affect my perception of his last film. This is probably impossible, but I wanted to at least try to judge the movie on its merits and not get all sentimental (especially since he was never very much on my radar, anyway, as an actor or otherwise).
I was not expecting the movie to be as dark as it is; it is gritty, harsh, cruel, and deadly serious. Gone are the moments of lightness and camp that we saw in the previous films. This is not a pleasant movie to sit through, but I did find it riveting in a gut-clenching kind of way.
I could take or leave Christian Bale as Batman. He's easy on the eyes, but I found his performance to be rather one-dimensional. Perhaps he wasn't given a lot to work with- I don't know. I found his "Batman voice" to be irritating and unbelievable. The gadgets, new Batmobile, and the "motorcycle thingy" are neato to look at, and although there have been mixed feelings about the new style of Batman's costume, I didn't really mind it one way or another.
I don't know how much editing and post-production occurred after Heath Ledger's death; this movie, however, is decidedly about The Joker. He has over 75 minutes of screen time (almost half of the movie), and I must say that Ledger's performance is pretty remarkable. I don't think many people knew he could act like that. Brokeback Mountain was probably his "breakaway" vehicle, but the plot was so controversial that I think it prevented a lot of the viewing public from appreciating the acting, and perhaps even from attending in the first place. Ledger's previous films, by and large, had been fluff, but it turns out that they were no true measure of his abilities.
Ledger's Joker is nuanced, often subtle, and a terrifying homicidal maniac who doesn't kill for money but rather "to watch the world burn". From the moment he "makes a pencil disappear" about 20 minutes into the movie, you know the kind of Joker you have on your hands, and it is in a different universe than Jack Nicholson's memorable character from 1989. I'm a huge Nicholson fan and I love his Joker; the two are just...different. Gone is the backstory about disfigurement via vat of nuclear goo; instead, we get two or three different stories, all told by The Joker himself, about how he got his hideous scars. Scott Johnson from ExtraLife Radio says that this made him feel that the true story of the scars was more horrific than the ones The Joker tells; I personally got the impression than perhaps he'd disfigured himself on purpose because it amused him.
I left the movie actually missing Heath Ledger, and wondering what he would have done if he'd lived another 50 years. I do think it's quite likely that he'll get a posthumous Oscar nod, and perhaps even the award itself. It's that wild.
The downside of this partially death-induced Ledger mania is that the excellent performances by Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal are likely to slip under the radar. Eckhart is a force in his own right, although I found him more believable as Harvey Dent than I did once he becomes Two-Face. It's hard for a movie to handle more than one supervillain at a time, but Dark Knight did a commendable job by keeping them separate and really downplaying the whole Two-Face deal. I felt that it was very secondary to the plot, and really only served as something to cut away to when they wanted to make a break from the scenes on the ferries.
I'm going to be quite interested to see what happens with this movie at Oscar time.
I have mixed feelings about several elements in the movie, although in the final analysis I did feel that it's a tour-de-force.
I went in determined to make a valiant effort not to let Heath Ledger's death affect my perception of his last film. This is probably impossible, but I wanted to at least try to judge the movie on its merits and not get all sentimental (especially since he was never very much on my radar, anyway, as an actor or otherwise).
I was not expecting the movie to be as dark as it is; it is gritty, harsh, cruel, and deadly serious. Gone are the moments of lightness and camp that we saw in the previous films. This is not a pleasant movie to sit through, but I did find it riveting in a gut-clenching kind of way.
I could take or leave Christian Bale as Batman. He's easy on the eyes, but I found his performance to be rather one-dimensional. Perhaps he wasn't given a lot to work with- I don't know. I found his "Batman voice" to be irritating and unbelievable. The gadgets, new Batmobile, and the "motorcycle thingy" are neato to look at, and although there have been mixed feelings about the new style of Batman's costume, I didn't really mind it one way or another.
I don't know how much editing and post-production occurred after Heath Ledger's death; this movie, however, is decidedly about The Joker. He has over 75 minutes of screen time (almost half of the movie), and I must say that Ledger's performance is pretty remarkable. I don't think many people knew he could act like that. Brokeback Mountain was probably his "breakaway" vehicle, but the plot was so controversial that I think it prevented a lot of the viewing public from appreciating the acting, and perhaps even from attending in the first place. Ledger's previous films, by and large, had been fluff, but it turns out that they were no true measure of his abilities.
Ledger's Joker is nuanced, often subtle, and a terrifying homicidal maniac who doesn't kill for money but rather "to watch the world burn". From the moment he "makes a pencil disappear" about 20 minutes into the movie, you know the kind of Joker you have on your hands, and it is in a different universe than Jack Nicholson's memorable character from 1989. I'm a huge Nicholson fan and I love his Joker; the two are just...different. Gone is the backstory about disfigurement via vat of nuclear goo; instead, we get two or three different stories, all told by The Joker himself, about how he got his hideous scars. Scott Johnson from ExtraLife Radio says that this made him feel that the true story of the scars was more horrific than the ones The Joker tells; I personally got the impression than perhaps he'd disfigured himself on purpose because it amused him.
I left the movie actually missing Heath Ledger, and wondering what he would have done if he'd lived another 50 years. I do think it's quite likely that he'll get a posthumous Oscar nod, and perhaps even the award itself. It's that wild.
The downside of this partially death-induced Ledger mania is that the excellent performances by Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal are likely to slip under the radar. Eckhart is a force in his own right, although I found him more believable as Harvey Dent than I did once he becomes Two-Face. It's hard for a movie to handle more than one supervillain at a time, but Dark Knight did a commendable job by keeping them separate and really downplaying the whole Two-Face deal. I felt that it was very secondary to the plot, and really only served as something to cut away to when they wanted to make a break from the scenes on the ferries.
I'm going to be quite interested to see what happens with this movie at Oscar time.