It would be hard for a movie to enter theaters with more buzz to live up to than The Dark Knight. Critical raves were near-unanimous, crystallizing around praise for the haunted last performance of Heath Ledger, which more than a few whispered was so unsettlingly brilliant that it may have driven him over the edge. All this for a summer blow-em-up blockbuster? How could it satisfy the hype?
As it turns out, it's closer to the bleak Westerns that cleaned up at the Oscars this winter than to the candy-colored creampuffs that we're used to seeing in July, a bleak cry of despair cloaked in the garb of a comic book action movie, No Country For Old Men with a Batmobile.
The movie starts out innocently enough, with a violently funny Joker-led bank heist, in which each of the Joker's henchman shoots the next one in turn in order to get a better share of the loot, with the Joker pulling the final trigger. From there the film cuts to Batman (Christian Bale), picking up where the last film left off, successfully thwarting the Scarecrow. But the clash between good and evil quickly gives way to destruction and collateral damage, as Ledger's Joker casts his violence as a proof of the basic amorality of humanity, each death a random choice, with each collateral casualty yet more evidence that he's right.
Other than the third-act appearance of the villain Two-Face, the cast and city alike mainly serve as canvases for Ledger to paint his mania upon. The cast is rounded out by fine actors with too little to do unless they're in the direct path of the destruction: Michael Caine as the wise butler Alfred, Morgan Freeman as toymaker Lucius Fox, Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes (replacing Katie Holmes). Bale's Batman is mostly a perpetual scowl, whether in costume or not. Frustrated by his inability to stop the Joker, he loses faith in his ability to be heroic.
There are elements of Anton Chigurh in both main villains, in the frightening conviction of the Joker's nihilism and in Two-Face's reliance on chance, flipping a coin as he decides whether to kill someone. Yet while Chigurh's menace was packed in a fairly unassuming presence, Batman villains have cartoonishly outsized appearances, owing their names and faces to 1940's radio serials and detective stories. But director Christopher Nolan ups the menace by keeping the rest of the Joker's identity in the dark. Stripped from his toxic waste-creation story, the Joker is left with only his facepaint and hair color; like Chigurh, we don't know who he is, where he came from, or what made him that way.
In many ways, it's the feel-bad movie of the summer: it's hard not to stare into Ledger's eyes and come away profoundly shaken. Though in the end good emerges at least slightly victorious -- a temporary armistice against the forces of darkness -- it's one of the least happy endings for a mainstream American action movie in quite a while.
That unsettling conclusion will find its mirror in another 7 months, when Ledger will undoubtedly win a posthumous Oscar for his work, and be praised with warm, loving, shallow adjectives that will likely have very little to do with the work he offered onscreen. But the performance will long outlive the praise. It is strange, idiosyncratic, compelling, hilarious, and horrifying, and it is now his legacy.
For us, all that remains is to watch the movie and feel the chills, and be so engrossed by the Joker as to forget what befell the actor behind him.
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The big studios are polluting our culture with mindless garbage like Batman, Spiderman, Iron Man, etc. We need more movies like No Country for Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, The Savages, The Constant Gardner, The Squid and the Whale, The Hours, Sophie's Choice, All the President'
It's okay if you do -- I know someone who doesn't like to read fiction, because it's about something that never happened -- but if that's the case, then your problem isn't with Batman or Frank Miller, but with the genre of fantasy itself. That's fine if that's your taste, but you should be aware of and forthright with your predilecti
In fairness, this movie is about as far from Bourne as it can possibly be. Bourne is a terrific update of the classic espionage techno-thr
Dark Knight was more of a psychologi
(fairly) good movie went bad so fast when that helicopter went in the tunnel. Now I have a term for that sort of thing...th
Will be seeing the movie tomorrow.
I am usually remiss to heap praise upon other screenwrit
There are moments of sheer terror in Dark Knight. Not from exciting explosions and the usual fare, but from quiet, truly frightenin
Everyone has their part to play in this movie and each and every character is given their due. Even Alfred has a touching, loving moment that will remind anyone with a human family how far they'd go to keep someone they love out of pain.
If you see any movie in 2008, make is The Dark Knight. You won't be sorry.
The Nolans, meanwhile, need little introducti
As much as I loved Dark Knight, though, I hope Nolan lightens it up a bit for the next Bat movie. I think another one of these would be too much! And, As much of a masterpiec