Review of The Dark Knight
Saw The Dark Knight this past Friday with Big Bro. I'd just watched The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance with my dad earlier that evening (
sansmerci, you really should give John Wayne Westerns a better chance. He made more films than any other member of the Screen Actor's Guild, ever, so of course ninety percent of them will be trash. But then there's the good stuff. This is a Western where Jimmy Stewart, the lawyer, is the hero.), so I've made my dad happy. And most any film will probably fade after Liberty Valance earlier that afternoon.
What I was surprised to find, though, is that Dark Knight and Liberty Valance have the same theme. See, my dad explained that a 'Liberty Valance' is now almost a genre in itself, a film set in a world of questionable morals, where "when the legend becomes truth, print the legend." And, yep, this movie certainly builds on that. But still, I did not like it. Why?
The Dark Knight was not any fun.
It went on for at least a half-hour more than it needed to. At one point towards what I thought would be the end (Harvey and Rachel are imprisoned by vats of gasoline), I'm thinking, "Oh man, massive disfigurement coming up, I don't want to see this." So I scootch out (fortunately Bro and I are sitting in the, um, handicapped seats) and lurk outside the theater. Nothing's going on, but I notice that Mamma Mia! is playing.
So I sneak in to Mamma Mia and watch a few minutes. I'm amused, I'm reminded that the whole world is not the crapsack city of Gotham, I'm ready to go back into Dark Knight and watch the denouement.
Except it isn' t the denouement. All that has been was just another flinging-flanging rising action! It's almost like the Joker himself wrote this screenplay, jerking the audience with "Now the film's going to be over! Gotcha, it isn't! You have to sit through another villain going around and wreaking havoc on the place!" Just end the damn film already, will you? No, I don't want to see how you made the actor half-normal actor and half-extra from Pirates of the Caribbean, so stop showing me!!
Now, that said, Heath Ledger was good. He was very good. He did not make it look easy, which is what most performances attempt to do, but then again, maybe that works better. And I don't want to end this just by saying he was "good." He was precise. By gestures, by speech and inflection, by that little tongue-flick, he made a character completely independent of the lines and actions the script gave him. He was so precise, so careful, so methodical in every bitty detail, that it worked. Consistent and utterly, utterly, focused, it worked.
When I reviewed this to my dad, I compared his performance to the unhinged roles of the M.C. in Cabaret and Captain Jack Sparrow. Now, I would add Norma Desmond to this list. (Sunset Boulevard. Good movie. Pretty nice street, too.) In that, what I said was, "This is the kind of performance that a really good actor should do once in his career - but not more than that." (Exception: Joel Grey as the M.C., doing it on Broadway and in the film. Incredible. Example: Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow. He lost so much pizzazz in movie two.)
Oscar worthy? Not sure. Really not sure. I still think that Depp deserved the nomination for Jack Sparrow, but that was partially because the Academy never recognizes comedy and the mold needs to be shaken up. Plus, I really can't help but think that everyone is piling up the love for Heath Ledger and his performance out of a kind of contrition, a way to apologize. There's this sense of "He died for this role, it has got to be good! It has got to be worth it!" Or at least, this was his last gift to the world, it has got to be worth it.
Poor Heath Ledger. Soon he'll be another name on that roster of promising actors who died young, and all this public grief over him will dissipate and be just a memory.
On the other actors: Christian Bale. Will you stand still for a minute or two so I can glomp you with my eyes? And could you recite a bit of your dialogue as Howl while you're at it? Please? It would make the movie so much more interesting.
Michael Caine: I want to hug you and then seat you in a corner and have you recite your closing lines from The Man Who Would Be King: "and ol' Danny fell. Round and round and round he fell, round and round, like a pennywhirligig. Twenty thousand miles -- for it took 'im, half an hour to fall."
In summary: The Dark Knight was not very fun. It took itself very, very seriously and went on for too long, and the only thing that it said was something about legends and public appearances, something that, as we don't have any actual superheroes, I don't see as being that applicable. And it's possible that Wicked said it better in the first place.
*whoo* needed to get that out of my system. Respond away.