Observations on The Dark Knight
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Full disclosure: I am an employee of DC Comics and got to see The Dark Knight at an advance (but not exclusive) screening last night. So, if you think I’m being a company man, well, you don’t know me. Homey don’t play that. I found Batman Begins to be highly over-rated and a bit of a muddled, narrative mess. I didn’t like the villains and found the whole plot to have Gotham City destroy itself to be pretty convoluted and illogical. Better than the Schumacher Batman films? Sure. That wasn’t very hard to do. Great? Hardly.I’m here to tell you that The Dark Knight is everything the hype about Batman Begins led me to believe that film would be, and then some. I’m cynical about hype and usually find myself disappointed by big budget blockbusters that everyone else loves. To this day, I don’t get the adulation for Spider-Man 2. Although with, first, Iron Man and now this, I seem to be joining the ranks of popular opinion. I haven’t seen the new Hulk movie, but it seems as if super-hero movies are getting smarter, more nuanced, better written, and have a much higher level of acting.
Lets go over some of the specifics.
1) If you haven’t heard the word on Heath Ledger, you don’t pay attention to the entertainment business, so why are you reading this? If you have, you know the words “posthumous Oscar” have surfaced a few times. It’s easy enough to charge sentiment for an actor fallen before his time. But it would be wrong to do so. I stand with the crowd. Ledger’s performance is mesmerizing. I can’t recall the last time an actor grabbed hold of a movie like this and lifted it to a whole other level. Maybe Daniel Day Lewis in either Gangs of New York or There Will Be Blood. But Lewis had no real competition in those films. There are some fine actors and performances in this movie. Heath Ledger is just on another plane. It is electric. A performance that will be talked about for decades. His Joker is to Jack Nicholson’s as Nicholson’s was to Caesar Romero's. They’re just not in the same league.
2) The film deals with themes of moral ambiguity. The Joker is almost a device—a force of nature who, it is explained, seems to have no traceable past. He just is. The rise of Batman has apparently brought about the existence of a suitably bizarre counterpart and the Joker seems to exist to mock the Batman’s role as a “hero.” He asks questions with no easy answers and the film gives you no happy endings to make you feel good about things. Issues that clearly parallel those in our reality—terrorism and the extent to which a society (and an individual) is willing to go to stop—are raised without being preachy about them.
3) I really appreciate the fact that director Christopher Nolan has abandoned the elaborate, gothic sets that established the modern Batman style, beginning with Anton Furst’s visionary concepts in the first Tim Burton film. Impressive as they were, they always defined the Batman as unreal and the movies as almost operatic in their highly stylized settings. For The Dark Knight, Nolan shot largely on location in Chicago and makes no attempt to mask the fact. As such, the story becomes more gritty and more real. (There’s a side trip to Hong Kong that I found pretty breath taking, with action scenes worthy of the best Bond film.)
4) I enjoyed the expanded role given to the character of Jim Gordon. (Not yet Commissioner at the film’s start.) In some ways, Gordon can be thought of as Watson to Batman’s Holmes. And neither Watson nor Gordon should ever be underrated as resourceful characters and certainly not regarded as comic relief. Why would either Holmes or Batman—the most intelligent, highly developed, self-made crime fighters of their respective eras—waste their time with buffoons? Just because they aren’t the geniuses their counter parts are, still doesn’t mean that they are not better than most. Gordon is shown to be a resourceful, and in his own way as potentially ruthless as Batman. It’s a very well written part and Gary Oldman gives it a very nuanced performance, as cool in its way as Ledger’s is hot.
5) Don’t know why Katie Holmes didn’t return to the role of Rachel, but I prefer her substitute, Maggie Gyllenhall. Maybe this is unfair, but the problem I have with actresses like Holmes in films like this is that they take me out of the reality. The male actors aren’t all necessarily perfectly handsome and all mostly have their scars and physical quirks. The doll like beauty and physical perfection of someone like Holmes stands apart from the world they are in and reminds you that you are watching a movie. Gyllenhall just isn’t that pretty but resembles Holmes just enough that you would believe she’s her smarter, older sister. And that feels just right for this film.
6) The addition of a second “villain” doesn’t feel gratuitous. The tradition of most super-hero movies, sadly, is to layer on more and more villains with each successive sequel. Even the most casual Batman fan knows from the name of actor Aaron Eckhart’s character—Harvey Dent—who he is going to turn out to be. But he has a purpose in this film that’s integral to the main story and his evolution feels (mostly) logical.
7) Two and a half hours, but it didn’t feel like it. About the only complaint I’ve heard about the film was that it was too long. Well, that’s pretty common these days. Yet it’s only in hindsight where I can maybe agree with that opinion, and even then only apply it to the resolution of the final character arc in the film to be resolved. But during it, I never felt like it dragged a bit. Sequels to super-hero movies usually have an advantage to their predecessors in that the obligatory, expository (and usually not all that exciting) origin story has already been dispensed with. That’s certain the case here, and The Dark Knight gets into the action with shot one and almost never lets up. It’s intense all the way through.
Go see it. But maybe not this weekend. If you’re like me, you won’t want to deal with the crowds.
posted by Jim Chadwick @ 11:57 PM,
2 Comments:
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At 3:51 AM,
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Liked it, but it was indeed overrated. Way to much symbolism for it's own good.
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At 12:51 AM,
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Seems like this is where DC starts to be a contender against Marvel, movie-wise. Waiting to take my boys to see it, but hopefully they can pee in a cup if they have to go (since it's 2 1/2 hours; digression: when I took them and two friends to see the latest Narnia, I must've been the frickin' bathroom escort eight times!), instead of making me miss any of it. Agree with you re: the earlier Bat movies in that Begins has been the best of the bunch (ere now, anyway), but the origin stuff seemed to go on and on...Iron Man was great, haven't seen Hulk yet. DC needs to say screw-it with another Superman outing for the time being (Singer threw the damper on it with "Superman Lifts"), unless it's a Batman/Superman gig; pretty much should focus on Batman every few years (throw in a Brave & the Bold movie, too), starting the Green Lantern franchise, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow (no Supermax prison shit)...oh yeah, IMHO. Tell 'em, Jim.
